


Learning Depths

by yingyanggirl



Category: Siren (TV 2018)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - High School, Beach Meetings, Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, First Meetings, Getting to Know Each Other, High School, Multi, Polyamory, Polymarine, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Threesome - F/F/M, uncomfortable revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25210858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yingyanggirl/pseuds/yingyanggirl
Summary: Ben Pownall and Maddie Bishop were all but strangers in high school; but what if that hadn't been the case? What if a curious teenage mermaid that made her way to land changed all that?
Relationships: Ben Pownall/Ryn, Maddie Bishop/Ben Pownall, Maddie Bishop/Ben Pownall/Ryn, Maddie Bishop/Ryn
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	1. The Girl on the Beach

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I would like to thank the user "White_Wolf998" over here on ao3 for their fic "Adrift" which is an attempt to salvage post season 3 and I feel that they're doing a good job so far; Polymarine fans and season 3 haters alike should definitely check this out if you haven't already. Chapter 4 of that fic was also the inspiration for this AU fic; it would take too long to explain how, but I am enjoying writing this so much and I hope that you all will enjoy reading it!

Summer was always the best season to the people of Bristol Cove, not only did it mean that the cold winters of Washington were a temporarily distant memory, but it also meant long days on the beach in addition to all of the tourist dollars that their mermaid festival brought them; an enjoyable past time for all, especially the teenagers.

Loud music played as the kids from the local high school partied the day away, dancing, talking and drinking in their friend groups and it was all observed by a silent watcher from the water; the eyes were the farthest down that she allowed herself to show. Her dark brown hair floated freely around her as the sun beat down on the top of her head; it bothered her a little but she was too fascinated by what was going on to dive back into the water.

These “humans” were dangerous, her people had always reminded the younger ones almost as soon as they were born that these were a dangerous race who had once slaughtered many of them without mercy and that they were to be avoided at all costs. However, this one had always been accused of being too curious for her own good and her curiosity of humans was no exception.

They fascinated her, even if they are destroying her home and have killed her people; it wasn’t like they were coming down to hunt them. Their ways seemed strange to her, she witnessed them play and make loud noises, they danced like her people sometimes did despite the physical differences…she wanted to be among them, at least for a little while.  
She knew that she would be able to be on land among them, those stories are well known also, but it was still dangerous as they didn’t know how to blend in with the humans; otherwise some of her kind might have taken over long ago, along with the fact that no one wished to stay on land forever, the water was freedom to them.

But…she still wanted to explore the land world…she needed to think on this.

She dove back into the water to rejoin her family and perhaps memorize them if she ended up going away for a while.

*~*~*

Beach parties at night were even more popular with Bristol Cove teens than the daytime ones, especially when there was a moon shining down on everything; it made the water seem more magical than the sun was capable of. But even those parties had to wind down eventually as the kids had to go home and crash into their beds while hoping that their parents wouldn’t notice their possible hangovers.

Not so for Maddie Bishop, who would rather stay out as late as she could and risk facing her dad’s anger over going back home and facing a mom who was high off her ass; the longer she wasn’t going to face reality the better off she was emotionally. It was too bad that she had only managed to smuggle a couple of extra beer cans on her person when the party started winding down and she was almost finished the second one.

After witnessing her mom’s substance abuse for years now she really didn’t have much of a desire to drink too much lest she end up like Susan; but she still drank to relax and always timed it so that she didn’t take another bottle or can until she was sure that she wouldn’t get drunk. She finished the can as she stared out at the water that looked so bright in contrast to the darker edges; she waited for few moments before she slowly stood up and dropped the can on the sand.

A quick look at her watch told her that she didn’t want to go home yet, but the party was over so the only thing left was to walk along the shoreline until she was sure that her mom would be passed out before she would start her walk home; her dad was working late again and so she shouldn’t get caught this time.

She had just started to walk when something that had been watching her made their way toward the beach.

*~*~*

The mermaid hadn’t taken long to decide what she wanted to do, as soon as she had returned to her family she had fell back into the boredom that she had been suffering from lately and had only lasted a while before she had returned to the surface; if only after avoiding her sisters’ ever watchful eyes.

The colour on the water was different than when she had left but it was still pretty in any case, especially since this light didn’t hurt her eyes from looking at it; it was after she had turned her gaze from the object in the sky did she spy the lone human that was sitting in the sand.

They were clearly a female, her dark skin somewhat reminded her of her sister and her sister’s daughter, the young mermaid could admit that this human was pretty; she couldn’t quite tell from this far away but she wondered if the female was strong like her race and she thought that the human could be quite taller than her.

Her last thought was confirmed when the female stood up and began walking away, if she was truthful she felt a little sad that the pretty female was going away before she could talk to her; perhaps she might come back after a while?

The mermaid made her way closer to the beach but by the time she reached the sand, the human female was too far away to see her, but she wasn’t going to give up; she crawled onto the sand until she was fully out of the water and that was when the pain began. She had almost forgotten about this part of the stories, that not only was the change from her true form to her human form quite painful, but there were also warnings of how many things could go wrong during the change; including the risk of death.

But the stories were nothing compared to the sensation of her bones breaking and the flesh of her tail sloughing away as she dragged herself more inward; she was able to see her skin change colour and she also felt her face somewhat change its shape. She lay there, tired, naked and vulnerable from her first change and waiting to see if the female returned.

*~*~*

‘I guess mom should be asleep now,’ Maddie sighed after looking at her watch before she turned back the way she came. ‘Just two more years of high school Maddie, then you can get out of here and do whatever you want.’ The problem was that she didn’t even know what she was going to do with her life; other sixteen year olds were concerned with partying and breaking as many rules as they could, they didn’t have to deal with a junkie for a mother like she did…

‘And yet I get stuck with the party girl label when there are other far more deserving of that title;’ she sighed. It wasn’t fair, she always considered herself somewhere in between party girl and goody two shoes; she wasn’t like Janine or Melanie, but at the same time she could admit that she wasn’t a saint that had golden light shining from their ass, like…Ben Pownall for example.

She didn’t know him that well, Hollywood usually portrayed the Sheriff’s and the kids of the local rich parents as running in the same circle in small towns but that definitely wasn’t the case in Bristol Cove; pretty much the most interaction they would have was the occasional friendly greeting in the school halls.

From what she could see, he did go to parties but his lack of drinking made her look like she was on a constant bender and he didn’t act like an asshole one would expect from with a family like his so he had that going for him; if given the chance she may like to get to know him more…her train of thought was interrupted when she noticed something, or rather, someone on the sand where she had been sitting before.

‘What the hell?!’ She jogged the final pace to where the person, a girl around her age she guessed, was laying outstretched on the sand with her eyes closed; a close up showed that she was breathing but she appeared to be in pain, she also saw that it looked like the girl had dragged herself from the water.

‘That’s weird,’ she thought as she reached out to touch her while noting that this girl didn’t look familiar to her at all; when her hand got a few inches away from the girl’s shoulder, her eyes suddenly opened and she shot up, Maddie couldn’t help but notice her blue eyes, which were so dark that it almost seemed…exotic.

Her hair that was a few centimeters above her shoulders was damp and partially caked with the sand that she had passed out in as was most of her naked body; a body that Maddie was trying desperately not to stare at, which was strange because she’d had no trouble with being with the girls in the changing rooms for gym…

She inwardly shook herself out of her thoughts, this girl might need help and this definitely wasn’t the time to be thinking those kind of those thoughts.

“Are you okay?” Maddie asked gently trying not to scare her. “Do you need help?” She held out her hand and waited to see what the girl would do. At first the girl seemed to be confused by the gesture and stared at it for a few seconds before she hesitantly reached her own out to touch hers and allowed herself to be pulled up; she still didn’t say a word.  
“Are you hurt?” she asked as she carefully allowed herself to look over the girls arms, they were covered in scratches, but nothing that looked like they didn’t come from dragging herself along the sand. The girl still seemed to be confused, as if trying to understand what she was asking.

‘Maybe she doesn’t understand English?’ Maddie thought this was a strong possibility and knew that she had to be really, really careful about how she handled this; who knew how this girl would react to fear.

“You don’t have to be scared, I’m not going to hurt you,” Maddie still kept her voice soft and this seemed to soothe the girl as she squeezed her hand tightly and Maddie took this as a good sign. That was when Maddie realized that she had a problem, she couldn’t bring the girl home with her (especially with her mom the way she was), but she couldn’t take her to Doctor Abbot because what the hell was she going to say?!

In between a rock and a hard place, she chose what she thought was the least difficult option.

“Come on, I’ll take you to my house,” she said as she gently pulled the girl along and it was to her relief that the girl didn’t resist. The long walk back was somewhat awkward as the girl didn’t make a sound and Maddie was feeling too many emotions to try and make small talk; plus she had to plan how to sneak the girl past her mom, also she knew that she had to eventually call her dad. When they finally did reach her house, she turned to the girl.

“We have to be quiet, I don’t want to wake my mom up;” she whispered and the girls’ expression was still so neutral that she couldn’t tell if she understood or not but she had to take the chance anyway. She and the girl came up to the door and she unlocked the door carefully with her keys and slowly took her hand from hers and wrapped her arm around her back and led her inside.

It was to Maddie’s immense relief that her mom was passed out on the couch as she had predicted (and the irony wasn’t lost on her); it was also to her relief that the girl did indeed stay quiet as Maddie led them up to her room and showed her to the bathroom that was attached which she was thankful for since her mom wouldn’t wake up from the water running in this one.

“You can clean yourself up in here, I’ll go find you something to wear;” she told the girl before she left the bathroom and shut the door behind her, leaving the girl to her own devices.

*~*~*

The mermaid had no idea what she was supposed to do in this enclosed space as she barely understood what the human had said to her but she thought that the female had said that she was supposed to clean herself here; she started to panic a little now since she wondered if she was going to expose herself if she didn’t figure out what she was supposed to do.

She took a quick look around before her gaze fell something odd; she went to a big chamber and stepped inside before she pulled on a small knob and nearly jumped out of her skin when water began to emerge from above her head, fear creeped into her at the thought that she might change back in this space where she would be discovered…

But that didn’t happen, much to her relief, which made her realize that this wasn’t her water; perhaps humans had a different kind of water? It felt nice…being able to feel water on her new human skin without any worry about changing back. She looked down and saw that the gritty things that had been stuck to her hair and skin were beginning to come off under the water; without much more hesitation, she went under the falling water.

As she started washing, she experimented with the knob and felt the water change temperature as she turned it from side to side; she settled on cold because it reminded her a little of the ocean depths that were home. She didn’t come out until she felt all of the sand was gone from every inch of her body; she was still dripping water when she heard the door knock.

*~*~*

As she looked through her drawers for something to give to the girl (which was a little hard since she was a bit taller than her guest), Maddie opened her flip phone and dialed her dad’s private office number, hoping that he would be there and not out on patrol at the moment because she didn’t want to have him race home and then have to answer to the town council as to why he had to leave his route so abruptly. She put her phone on speaker to make it easier to talk as she continued to rummage; it took a few rings but her dad eventually picked up.

“Sheriff’s office, Sheriff Bishop speaking.”

“Hey dad,” Maddie began hesitantly as she tried to gather her courage.

“Maddie? What are you doing up so late?” Dale’s voice was firm and she knew that she had no choice but to speak up now; there was no turning back.

“There’s a bit of a problem here…”

“Is it your mom?” She heard his chair creak and assumed that he had been sitting back but had sat up as he asked the question.

“No, she’s fine…for her…” the last part was said quietly and it was to her relief that he didn’t scold her for that. “It’s just that…I found someone on the beach…” the whole story came tumbling out after those initial words.

“I left her in the shower to clean off the sand,” she finished. “I know I should have taken her to the hospital, but she seems so skittish that I wasn’t sure if she would be overwhelmed…”

“Maddie,” Dale interrupted her babbling; “it’s okay, I was about to pack it in for the night anyway so I’ll help with the girl when I get back, alright?”

“Thanks dad, I’m just looking for some clothes for her now.”

“Alright, we’ll see you later.”

“Later dad,” Maddie hung up as she finally found some clothes in the bottom of her drawers from a couple of years ago before her slight growth spurt; the girl might still be too tiny for them but it was the best that she could do.

She knocked a couple of times before she entered to see the girl was finished showering but was just standing there letting the water drip off of her, not even trying to reach for the towels. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

“You can use the towels, it’s okay,” she told her kindly as the girl looked up in confusion as she was talking. She pointed to them and the girl seemed reluctant as she carefully grabbed a towel and looked shocked at something about it before she began rubbing it in her hands; she looked at her now dry hands and the connection seemed to be made and so Maddie decided that it was time she made her exit.

“You can put these on when you’re done,” she said before she closed the bathroom door.

*~*~*

This felt so wonderful, this “towel” as the human female called it and she didn’t have to shake the water off now! But the coverings that she had given her had taken a few moments for her to be able to figure out how to put them on so that it fit like it did on her; although even the mermaid knew that they were somewhat ill fitting.

She turned the strange device like she had seen the female do to open up the spaces and saw her on the strange high thing that was squarely in the middle of this larger space.

“Sorry, it was what I thought would fit you the best;” she said with a small laugh as the mermaid continued to stare at her as she walked over to the bed.

*~*~*

“My name’s Maddie,” she told her before she seemed to think of something and pointed to herself; “Maddie,” she repeated and the other girl’s brain seemed to make a connection.  
“Maddie,” she repeated as she imitated the pointing gesture towards Maddie.

“That’s right!” Maddie said proudly. “What. Is. Your. Name?” Maddie said this slowly in the hopes that the girl would be able to understand and answer. It was just as the girl was about to open her mouth when a soft knock sounded on the door.

“Maddie?” Dale’s voice was on the other side.


	2. Daylight Wanderings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank both White_Wolf998 and the guest known as "Stella" for their great reviews last chapter!

_‘Wow, he got home pretty fast;’_ Maddie thought. She felt the girl jump up and hiss a little, which admittedly both unnerved and excited her; she instinctively laid a hand on the girls’ arm and the action seemed to calm her a little.

“It’s okay, it’s just my dad,” she said soothingly and her voice seemed to calm the girl the rest of the way down. “He can help you; just let me talk to him, okay?” She (reluctantly) took her hand off of the girl and went to answer the door.

*~*~*

The mermaid still didn’t entirely understand what Maddie had said but she didn’t seem to be threatened in any way so she felt that she should wait but she was feeling so tired and her body didn’t seem to want to…

She fell over onto the pillow before she could finish the thought.

*~*~*

“Welcome home dad,” Maddie said as she closed the door behind her and her stomach dropped a little at the expression on his face.

“Maddie, you know that I don’t like you staying out this late;” he began firmly with his arms folded and she only nodded. “However, because you may have saved a life I’ll let you off the hook…for now,” his tone turns softer; “I know things are tough with your mom right now…”

 _‘To say the least,’_ she had to bite her tongue to keep from saying this aloud.

“But if we support her through this…” Maddie somewhat tuned him out and nodded at the appropriate times until he finished.

“Now, where is the girl?” Dale was back in “Sheriff Mode” as she privately called it.

“Sitting on my bed after I let her shower and gave the one set of clothes that I thought might fit her,” Maddie replied as she frowned in thought of the girls’ behaviour; her dad certainly noticed her expression.

“What’s wrong?” His tone and face were concerned now and that meant she definitely had to say something.

“I’m worried about a couple of things,” she admitted and continued when Dale nodded for her to go on; “for one thing, I’m not even sure that she can understand English. She hasn’t said a word since I found her and she seems to have trouble understanding what I was saying, in fact I think the only reason she came with me was because I tried to use a tone that was as non-threatening as possible.”

“That was actually the reason that I was unsure about taking her to the hospital,” she added; “I mean I was afraid that she would freak out or something if the doctors asked her too many questions at once and she couldn’t understand…”

Dale nods, “and the other reason?”

“I’m not sure how to say this but…” and so Maddie told him about the girls’ reluctance in taking the towel and that definitely raised one of his eyebrows.

“So you think the girl might be…?”

“I don’t know what to think about that,” she replied honestly.

“Anyway, I should see her now.”

“Kay,” she said before she carefully opened the door; only to be greeted to the sight of the young girl passed out on the bed…and Maddie had only one pillow; the human in question had to fight back a blush.

“It is pretty late,” Dale said and Maddie inwardly cringed at how he was also lecturing her without using the voice. “I’ll talk to her later and I’ll handle your mom when she wakes up.” He added in anticipation of her question.

“Yes dad, night.”

“Night.”

Maddie couldn’t hold back the blush once she had the door closed; it was something that she had been trying to avoid ever since she had come across the girl. She had never thought that she had been attracted to girls before, she still wasn’t quite sure she even was because she tried thinking about girls she knew as she had been trying to distract herself from thinking about her guest in the shower before she had called her dad and she hadn’t felt hot at all.

But for some reason, this girl was different like that, she had this allure about her that if Maddie was being honest with herself, made her want to curl around her so she could be protected; but it wasn’t just that she was vulnerable looking, despite what she had told her dad she thought that there was some kind of strength in the girl that screamed out…something that she couldn’t put her finger on.

That didn’t help her current issue though, there was only one pillow on the bed, sure it was long enough for the both of them but that wasn’t the point, they would still be in close proximity to each other _in the same bed_. Maddie sighed and knew that she would have to bite the bullet and just lie down next to her and try to get some sleep; but first she had to change…

She got lucky in that her guest didn’t wake up once as she changed, it had been pretty hard once she laid down not to curl up next to her but she really didn’t need to traumatize the girl further; somehow she managed to eventually fall asleep once she got her nerves under control.

*~*~*

The mermaid woke up to see that the funny glowing ball that hurt her eyes when she looked at it was shining brightly into her sleeping space through the thing that helped her look outside; she shut her eyes momentarily so her new eyes could adjust to the new light with those same eyes. She also felt a weight against her back and turned her head to look behind her cautiously, only to see that it was only Maddie.

It felt…pleasant to be so close next to the pretty human female, who came a little closer when she had moved; the mermaid carefully turned to face her fully. Being next to another body made her feel good, it reminded her of when she slept with her colony, with her family…

She turned back around to face outside and this time she averted her eyes from the glowing object itself and carefully rose from the bed to not disturb her companion and walked curiously closer to try and see more of the outside; now that the light was different, she wondered how everything would be different…

The colours seemed…she couldn’t describe it other than not as dark as when she had come onto the shore, this quite pretty too, and she wanted to see more! She wanted to go out and explore the area some more…she turned back to Maddie, she really wanted to be with her while she was outside but she looked so peaceful sleeping…she heard voices from below and she did not want to interact with anymore humans at the moment, even if they appeared to be Maddie’s family…

She knew that breaking her way out would cause a lot of noise but she couldn’t remain here either, she started looking around the window to see if she could use it to get out; and she saw a strange thing that went across one side and the wall. She played with it until she unhooked it and carefully swung the window open until she could fit through it, she took one last look at Maddie before she carefully climbed out.

*~*~*

Maddie couldn’t identify what had caused her to snap awake as quickly as she did, whether it was the lack of the girl being around, the open window or both but she shot up from her bed as soon as she opened her eyes and immediately put two and two together.

 _‘Shit!’_ She thought as she got up and scrambled to shower in record time and change clothes and had just finished doing her hair when she heard a knock on the door and her dad entered when she gave her consent.

“I think she made a run for it dad,” she said before he could say a word as she pointed to the open window; “I woke up to find it like that, I guess she might have been a little scared with all the people in the house…” she trailed off a little sadly.

“Don’t worry, we’ll go look for her now,” he said with a lot of concern in his voice; not doubt because of Maddie’s emotional state and because if the girl was truly in need of help he needed to do what he could to help her.

“What about mom?” Maddie asked as she rose from her vanity chair.

“She’s still sleeping,” Dale informed her and she carefully kept her face neutral and didn’t show her true feelings; although she could admit to herself that for once she was grateful for her mom’s binges if it meant that she was out of the way for the moment, as cold as that sounded…

“Well, I guess we should try and figure out where she might go;” Maddie sighed.

“I don’t know why, but I think I have an idea…”

*~*~*

The land by the water was truly different this time too; to the mermaid, it was almost magical, especially the colour of the water, so bright that she longed to dive right back in…but she couldn’t, there was too many humans that could see her and her family would be in danger…

She had carefully walked the streets, looking around at all of the people as she tried to blend in without interacting with any of them; she knew that she had gathered a few stares and she could assume it was because they knew that she was not from their tribe.

At one point she had laid eyes on an older female that was outside and doing something to the ground with some kind of tool that had a soft looking end; she had sensed that this female who appeared to be a human was in truth one of her kind, she felt confusion from the observation and so she had veered away from the female who may in fact take her back to the water and she was not ready for that yet.

That was when she ended up back near where she had crawled up onto land and watched the people frolicking on the sand; her drag marks were long gone by the frenzied daytime activities. Her eyes landed on three small males, presumably children, who were sitting and using a large, thin object to draw pictures on the sand; she didn’t go near, but stopped far enough away so that she could still listen to what they were saying.

“Hey guys check this out!” One of them said as he took the stick from one of his companions; he wrote something with it and she carefully crept over to get a closer look.

“R-Y-N, what kind of word is that?!” Another boy laughed and the third one joined in.

“It says “Ryn”,” the first boy said defensively as he threw the stick down; “and I just made it up, geez!”

“Aww, trying to make a new word and be famous!” The second boy jeered as the third kept laughing. The first boy just huffed before he got up and stomped away; the other two just muttered “baby” before they left to follow him; the mermaid walked up and took the vacant seat directly in front of the drawing before she picked up the abandoned stick and began to trace the three lettered word.

“Hi!” A male voice came from above and next to her; she nearly jumped and attacked at the sudden intrusion; but she managed to repress the urge and simply snapped her head up to see a human male around Maddie’s age. He had hair that shone brightly in the light, like Maddie his face was friendly (or so she assumed) and he was quite attractive like her as well; she felt warm too, like in Maddie’s presence.

“I haven’t seen you around here before,” the male human said before he sat down beside her and she felt quite meek all of a sudden as she tried to come up with the right words.

“Just came here,” she managed to say and he looked…interested? So she assumed that she got the words right.

“Where are you from?” He asked.

“Far away,” she replied and was now sorely wishing that she had stayed in Maddie’s dwelling.

“I’m Ben,” he offered what she assumed was he was called and she gave the first answer that came to her.

“I’m Ryn,” she replied as she stared at the letters in the sand.

“It’s nice to meet you Ryn,” he said with a smile.

“You as well,” she said carefully as she wondered where he was going with this.

“Where are you staying?” It took a small moment for her to understand what he was asking and she answered somewhat truthfully.

“With Maddie,” she replied firmly; she felt somewhat hopeful that Maddie would still keep her despite her sneaking out. Before anything else was said, she heard a voice speak quietly somewhere from behind them.

“There she is!” Ryn knew immediately that the voice belonged to Maddie and she felt a little relieved; if this male turned out to be dangerous than she knew that she would be safe with Maddie. She carefully turned around and looked over where she had heard her voice come from; Maddie was walking over with an older male that she could only assume was the father that she had heard her speaking with before.

“Maddie!” Ryn called out in a neutral tone despite the relief that she was feeling and the comfort that had been beginning to form in Ben’s presence. She saw Maddie’s expression change, she wondered if it was because she had spoken for the first time since their meeting.

“Oh hi Ben!” Maddie directed her attention to Ryn’s companion once she got over her shock.

“Hey Maddie, Sheriff,” he replied as he nodded at each person in turn; “I was just talking with Ryn and she said that she was staying with you guys…” meanwhile, Ryn had gone back to nervously using the stick on the letters again; but a little more relaxed as Maddie didn’t appear to be hostile to the male beside her and so she decided that he might be safe to talk to.

*~*~*

“Uh yeah, she is,” Maddie got out once she overcame her shock at Ben’s opening statement. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the girl in question ( _who had a pretty name_ ), was drawing on the sand, she noticed the letters that spelt out Ryn’s name, but she was drawing beside them now; this new shape looked a lot like a fish…

“We were showing her around when we got separated, I guess she wanted see our beach,” Maddie knew that her explanation regarding why they weren’t together was weak at best; but she had to say something, plus she and her dad really needed to get their story straight, even if it had to be on the fly like this…

“I don’t blame her,” Ben replied as he stood up and Ryn copied his action before going over and standing next to Maddie.

“It is pretty,” Ryn contributed and Maddie was marveling at how much she was talking now; but in total honesty she might be just the teeniest bit envious that it was Ben who got her to stop being so quiet. It was a stupid feeling to begin with, but for some reason it just really stupid because it was Ben…

Ben looked at his watch.

“You need to be somewhere Ben?” Dale asked this curiously but Maddie could detect a little hint of relief that was mirrored inside her.

“Yeah, I’m actually going out and fishing on the North Star;” Ben replied.

“Xander had mentioned that,” Maddie said thoughtfully as she remembered that Xander had in fact mentioned that the other day but she had put it out of her mind.

“I was kind of curious about how we got out fish in and dad did the rest,” Ben explained.

“We won’t keep you than,” Dale said as the three turned to leave.

“Good seeing you two and it was nice to meet you Ryn!” Ben exclaimed before he jogged away. The three slowly walked off in silence, quite a bit of awkwardness in the air before Ryn had the courage to speak.

“You are…Maddie’s…father?” It was clear to Maddie (and she saw that her dad had noticed it to) that Ryn was struggling with her words. Ryn at least was capable of understanding English, but actually speaking it was an entirely different matter.

Speaking of which, her voice alone made Maddie want to both blush and crawl closer to her; there was a slight huskiness that was as alluring as her beauty alone…

“I am,” Dale replied softly; “and your name is Ryn?”

“I am Ryn,” she confirmed but she said it slowly as if she was unsure on how to string the words together.

“How did you end up where Maddie found you? Did someone hurt you?” Dale asked carefully and Ryn gave a look as if she was trying to both process his words and formulate the correct response.

“No one hurt, came from water…” Ryn said bluntly and both father and daughter were confused by that short statement. Both stared at her as they tried to understand, part of that statement could be interpreted to mean that she had been skinny dipping and someone stole her clothing; Maddie tried very, very hard not to think about that too closely…

But it still didn’t make complete sense…

“Where are you from?” Dale decided to change the subject, but Maddie knew that he was going to be grilling her more when her grasp of the language was better and she strongly felt sorry for when that happened…

“Far away,” was all Ryn supplied and her dad seemed to sense that he needed to back off at least for now; that was what made him a good policeman even before he had become Sheriff.

“We better get back,” he announced to both of them. “And we should think of our explanation in case your mom’s awake.”

 _‘Joy, mom being mom will no doubt scare her off,’_ Maddie thought sourly at the thought of potentially losing a new friend; it’s not like she had many besides Xander…

But deep down, even if she tried to deny it, she knew that it might be a little more than that.

*~*~*

 _‘Well, that was interesting!’_ Ben thought as he walked away, having turned back briefly for a glimpse of the strange girl as the trio was leaving the beach. He wasn’t sure why he had gone up to talk to her when he knew that he was on a bit of a time crunch; but when he had first saw her sitting and drawing in the sand, he thought that there was something…vulnerable about her.

However, after that brief conversation, his opinion only changed slightly, he still felt that she was vulnerable, but there was something almost…predatory about her too. It was her eyes, a blue so dark that he had never seen before, they repelled him, but also lured him in. It was just so damn weird…

And there was also the sudden warm feeling that he got when Maddie came up; that was pretty strange considering they didn’t really know each other on a personal basis…he only knew about her for two reasons: one was that she was the Sheriff’s step-daughter and the second was that she had been a close friend of Xander since they were kids.

So why was he suddenly feeling weird around her all of a sudden? He could say the same about being near that girl, Ryn…

He shook his head to clear his thoughts as he realized that he had reached the docks; he didn’t have the time to be thinking about this, he was supposed to concentrating on learning about Bristol Cove’s fishing industry and who else would he learn from but Sean McClure?

He would put these weird feelings aside…for now anyway.


	3. Working Hard, Not Hardly Working

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank everyone who had read and reviewed the previous chapter.

Susan was in fact awake when they got back and sitting at the kitchen table drinking out of mug; anyone not in the know would assume it was coffee, but Maddie knew that was only partially correct, it was likely that she had something extra to cure her of her coming down from last night’s high, but Maddie never cared to find out what it was.

“Dale, Maddie, I didn’t hear you go out,” she managed to say somewhat chirpily before she noticed Ryn. “And who is this?”

“This is Ryn Fisher, she’s going to be staying with us for a while mom,” Maddie said in the least tight voice as she could muster. She had been the one to come up with the last name, all she had to do was think of the fish that Ryn had been drawing in the sand; since Ryn would need it for whatever paperwork might need to be filed, and Ryn seemed reluctant to give one, plus something would be needed in the meantime.

Susan didn’t bother with asking Dale about this, it was obvious that Dale had already given his permission and she knew that she had no leg to stand on when it came to making sound decisions…Maddie couldn’t help but feel some satisfaction in this.

“Of course, it’ll be nice to have a guest!” Susan managed to be more cheerful this time, which Maddie felt was a record for recovery after a bad night; although it was still clear that she wasn’t fully coherent since she didn’t seem to notice that Ryn was wearing Maddie’s clothes…

“I’ll take her to the guest room,” Maddie said before grabbing onto Ryn’s hand and carefully leading the girl away from what might turn ugly; plus it kept her mom from asking why Ryn didn’t have any visible bags. Speaking of which…

“We’ll have to go out later and get some clothes for you,” Maddie stated as she guided Ryn to the door that was across from hers.

Personally Maddie had never seen the need for a guest room at her house, they didn’t really get many guests save for her aunt and those occasions had become fewer since…

“Pretty,” Ryn suddenly jolted Maddie from her morose thoughts; “like water.” The room had been decorated a dark blue with matching bedding; being a guest room it lacked other decorations.

“Come on, I gotta start on breakfast;” she said before tugging the girl back downstairs. She had long gotten used to being the one that had to feed everyone; mom always feeling like shit and dad would have nothing but fast food if he had his way.

“Breakfast?” Ryn asked quietly as she followed Maddie; who didn’t say anything about the girls’ confusion.

“When was the last time you ate?” She asked instead.

“Long time,” Ryn replied after a couple of seconds. When they were back in the kitchen, she showed Ryn to an empty seat at the table where her parents were already sitting and if the looks on their faces were a dead giveaway, dad just gave mom a stern talking to about trying to kick her habit and behave herself while they had a guest.

_‘Good luck with that,’_ she thought with some sarcasm as she started mixing the batter for pancakes; after the energy she had spent…all morning, she didn’t feel like doing anything else, plus who knew how long Ryn had really gone without food and so she might need something that was basic and filling.

While she was (somewhat) pretending to be focused on not burning the food, she heard her mom ask Ryn where she was from.

“Far away,” was all the girl supplied and Maddie bit her lip to keep from laughing as she pictured how puzzled her mom must have looked at Ryn’s lack of response.

“Ryn doesn’t really speak English,” she heard her dad try to explain. “There seemed to be some sort of mix up with her paperwork, she was supposed to go to a town on the East Coast with a similar name to ours and she ended up with the wrong plane ticket. Maddie found her wandering around trying to find the right street last night,” Maddie inwardly cringed as she felt her dad give her an invisible side eye; nope, that wasn’t going to go away any time soon…

She tuned out the rest of the conversation as she eyed each piece, trying to look like she was the picture of concentration; but was hiding so many confusing feelings at once. She was nervous about her mom scaring off Ryn, she was nervous about the fact that Ryn was staying here to begin with, she was most nervous about how attracted she was to Ryn…

She knew that her dad hated having to lie about this whole situation, even though the cover story was his idea; but he knew that if she really was in trouble than those lies might just save her. If only they knew just where she had come from…

The rest of breakfast was admittedly awkward with Susan asking questions and Ryn either giving short answers or seemingly pretending not to hear as she carefully ate her pancakes; it didn’t escape Maddie (and definitely her dad) that she hadn’t picked up her knife and fork until the rest of the table had, it was almost as if she didn’t even know how to use them…to say nothing about how slow she was eating, as if testing to see if it was fine to eat.

This was going to be an interesting time, whether it was going to be good or bad was still undecided at that point.

*~*~*

_‘Oh man do I need to work out more!’_ Ben thought with gritted teeth as he, Xander, Calvin and Mr. McClure hauled in their catch. Ben had quietly asked Xander beforehand why his dad hadn’t bought himself one of those winches that only needed to be cranked to bring in their catch like the other boats did and Xander had to explain just what a stubborn s.o.b. his old man is.

Because Mr. McClure had immediately barked at them to get on board so Ben hadn’t had a chance to ask about the Bishop’s house guest; in fact there was little talking that was done besides Mr. McClure giving directives and everyone listening. Ben didn’t dare say this out loud but it kind of reminded him of both of his parents; the only difference was that this nagging was what put food on peoples’ tables…

_‘Don’t knock getting out and doing this,’_ he reminded himself as they finally got the net onboard; _‘anything is better than sticking with them all summer since it’s the worst time of the entire year.’_ Yes, his skinny butt struggling to haul in a large catch was eons better than spending any kind of time with his parents; heck, maybe doing this alone would give him a decent workout…

Plus, it wasn’t so bad otherwise, he got to be on the water instead of just being on the beach, something that he had pretty much wanted since he was a kid; maybe having a fisherman as a friend of his dad’s wasn’t completely a bad thing…

_‘And at least he doesn’t give me special treatment,’_ he thought as the opened the net; and he was thankful for that, he could tell that a certain someone (coughCalvincough) wasn’t entirely thrilled to have him on board and he honest couldn’t entirely blame him. From a certain point of view he could understand why, he was probably thinking that Ben was just a bored rich kid who thought he was getting a free ride from said boredom; he was wrong on that account as Ben had already been aware just how hard he was going to have to work while he was on the boat.

He was both surprised and wasn’t when his parents had agreed to let him work on the North Star for the summer, he knew that rich kids from the bigger cities wouldn’t even want to work this hard; the few that probably would be willing would likely have parents that would balk at such a request. However, he knew that his parents had only agreed to allow him this small amount of freedom was for one reason only and it was the same reason that they would make any kind of decision like this: image.

If it made the Pownall name look as shiny as a disco ball than they would do it; a son that didn’t use his money to live a lazy life? Wouldn’t they be respected for that? Of course, that hadn’t been the point of him wanting to work on the fishing boat to begin with, but he definitely wouldn’t dare tell them the truth.

The truth was that he was tired, tired of being the golden boy, the oldest son of the town’s most prominent family, the one who might be expected to take over the family business…he knew that last one was desired by his little brother Doug; being the wiener that he is, but not by him. He wanted something more, beyond his parents’ expectations.

And admittedly being on the water was doing that for him despite the back breaking labor, when they weren’t casting nets or hauling in the catches they would be looking out over the water and tracking their movements with the radar during which he would occasionally see a frolicking sea creature and was fascinated (if a little sad) whenever he looked at the fish that flopped around on the deck.

Somehow, time still seemed to pass all too quickly because they were back with their catch all too soon in his opinion; however, he was somewhat thankful because he finally had the chance to talk with Xander.

“So I met the Bishop’s house guest this morning,” he started but stopped when he saw that Xander had a confused look on his face; for that matter, so did Calvin who had been hovering nearby.

“House guest? Maddie didn’t tell me anything about someone staying at their house,” Xander replied, his tone matching his face.

“Who would want to?” They both heard Calvin mutter and the looks that they both gave him could have vaporized him and he shrunk back a little.

“Anyway,” Xander said when they turned away from the moron; “Maddie never mentioned anything to me that they were going to have anyone staying with them.”

“I have the feeling she just got here, I wonder if she’s an exchange student? She kept giving me short answers and seemed to take the time to answer, so I don’t think she speaks or even understands a lot of English…” Ben said thoughtfully.

“She hot?” Calvin just couldn’t help himself.

“Even if she was, you wouldn’t have a chance anyway; you’re already not in the same league as Janine and she’s up there in hotness,” Xander said with a scoff and Ben took the time to try and think about how he was going to describe her as he drowned out the sound of Calvin protesting.

“I guess she’s cute enough,” Ben finally said when they finally quieted; “she’s got a mysterious aura about her, although that could probably be because she’s new and not from around here.” He knew that he was underselling just how beautiful Ryn actually was, but he just couldn’t find the words when being put on the spot like this…

“I guess it’s about time something new happened around here,” Calvin said in a conceded tone. The other two boys nodded in agreement; “not much does happen in this town…”

“Did you at least catch her name?” Xander asked before Calvin could continue his train of thought.

“Yeah, it’s Ryn,” Ben replied; “didn’t catch her last name though.”

“Maybe I’ll swing by Maddie’s and get some more info, don’t say a word!” Xander said; the last part was aimed at Calvin before he opened his mouth. “I’m not bringing back anything that you’ll probably drool over.”

Ben simply tuned out Calvin’s whining and Xander’s nagging as he sighed and closed his eyes as the soreness of his muscles finally got to him; he just let the sun dry up what little moisture was on his skin from the ocean spray. He knew from a discreet look at his watch after he had gotten off of the boat that it was almost four in the afternoon, he had been out there for almost six hours and he was aware that this was considered a short shift; this was only because it was a good day and it was a well-known fact that more often than not fishermen would have to stay out at night if not days at a time.

Ben knew that the majority of the problems with the fishing industry lay in the fact that the government had to limit the amount of fish each boat caught and that only came about because there were so few fish left in the waters; while the fishermen and his father to an extent liked to complain that the government was being unfair (the former because it cut into their livelihood and the latter because it cut into his profits), Ben did his own independent research and discovered that this only came about because everyone had been overfishing to begin with.

Not that anybody would listen to him, he didn’t even bother saying anything, this damn town was so small minded and stubborn in their ways, much like his parents…

_‘I wish I could do something about all this…’_ He sighed as he realized that his parents were expecting him back as soon as work was done and since Xander was going to be leaving soon he figured that he should be going now; he really didn’t want to hang out with Calvin more than necessary, it was like hanging out with Doug, if only slightly less annoying…

“Looks like I gotta go guys,” he said cutting through the argument as he made a show of looking at his watch. “My parents will raise hell if they found out that I was lingering.”

“Yeah I gotta go to Maddie’s, I’m dying to know what’s going on now;” Xander said and Calvin only gave a dramatic sigh when he realized that he was left to his lonesome before they all said their “see you tomorrow’s”.

Ben took the slowest journey that he dared get away with; wishing that his parents would loosen the leash at least a little bit.

*~*~*

“C-A-T,” Ryn said slowly as she repeated Maddie’s lesson and wrote out the strange human letters that she was being taught while trying her best to keep her writing arm tucked into her side as best as she could. After she had finished eating, Maddie’s father had suggested that she be taught how to speak, read and write the language that they were speaking and Maddie seemed to be quite eager to help her with this endeavor.

She could admit that learning to eat like a human had been interesting, but difficult; not simply because it was strange to use something besides her hands and a spear, but also because of the dark, dry patch that had appeared on her arm as she had been walking back to the dwelling with Maddie and her father. There was only one reason for its appearance, she needed to return to the water soon, but she didn’t want to leave so soon; however she couldn’t hide it for much longer…

Maddie’s closeness wasn’t helping, she could smell her scent and she was developing some more strange feelings that she could not identify; she knew that she was nervous (for more than one reason), but she felt…happy and it was a different happy than she was used to feeling around her sister and her pack. She like she wished to sing…

“That’s good,” Maddie interrupted her musings and Ryn had noticed that she had been writing the “cat” symbol (she didn’t know what that meant but when she had asked during the first word “ant”, Maddie had promised her to show her what they were, Ryn didn’t know what that meant but she trusted Maddie); over and over without truly thinking about it to match the other words.

“Try “dog”, D-O-G;” Maddie instructed as she pointed to each letter in turn.

“D-O-G,” Ryn repeated as she began writing; as she did so, she looked at the alphabet list that was sitting above the notebook she was using. She thought she could understand now, instead of a single rune to denote something like her people did, they used these smaller ones that they combined to form a word; this was going to be hard, she knew that, but if Maddie was the one who was teaching her…

Eventually they took a break to eat and this time it was something called a “sandwich” and this was eaten with their hands, however she was aware that the spot of her arm was steadily growing; her eyes told her this and she knew that time was short and she knew that she had no way of explaining this without more questions.

“I’ll take her out for some clothes,” Maddie had announced before she had grabbed her hand (Ryn was thankful that it was her other arm) and escorted her from the house. She had let go of her eventually, but Ryn missed the contact nonetheless.

“C’mon!” Maddie had said cheerfully as she had led the mermaid to wherever she was taking her; Ryn simply didn’t question, just followed. During the long walk, Ryn openly looked at their surroundings and it didn’t escape her notice that the other humans around them would stop and stare at the two females and would also whisper to each other sometimes.

She saw Maddie frown when she had made this same observation.

“Maddie well?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Maddie said but Ryn could sense that she wasn’t being truthful; but couldn’t really convey that into words, but the blank stare that she gave Maddie seemed to be enough to weaken her a little.

“There could be one of two reasons that they’re looking at us,” Maddie said. “It might be because I’m with someone that they have never seen before, or…”

“Or?” Ryn repeated.

“Or it could be because of my mom,” Maddie said somewhat rushed; “I’m used to being stared at for that reason. It’s hard to explain and honestly I’m hoping that you won’t have to witness her…antics for lack of a better word.” She ended her explanation with a sigh.

Ryn didn’t know what to do, this was a situation that she had never experienced with her own people; so she ended up doing the only thing she could think of: she reached out and grabbed Maddie’s hand…and her dry patch was visible now.

But Maddie didn’t seem to notice, she simply appeared to be shocked at the gesture before she smiled a little and began pulling her along.

“Thanks Ryn,” she smiled and Ryn felt her insides stirring strangely as she allowed Maddie to lead her once more to where they needed to go; neither seemed to notice the people anymore.


	4. There's Getting Out, and There's Getting Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, I saw the news on Tumblr and Reddit last night and I am torn; for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I won't share my opinion until next chapter to avoid spoilers.

Maddie three observations as she and Ryn were making their way to Ms. Hawkins shop, well, four if she counted the woman herself outside said business trying to…hawk her wares; sheesh, her ten year old self always laughed at the joke that was told between kids…anyway, long time observations about this told her that she would only be partially successful.

First was how Ryn suddenly tightened her grip on her hand just as Ms. Hawkins happened to look in their direction; the second was when she turned her head to look at Ryn and saw that her normally plain expression had changed into one of (very) slight discomfort and the third came when she turned back and nearly jumped at the sight of Ms. Hawkins expression.

She couldn’t entirely describe it, it was almost a mix of disbelief and horror, but it wasn’t the kind of horror that meant she was scared of something bad happening; no it was the type that meant she was confused at something that wasn’t supposed to happen but has happened. She sped up her pace if only to keep herself from stopping to ask the woman what the hell was up; she knew that Ryn being here would cause curiosity and questions, but…

_‘That was so damn weird!’_ She thought as they were past the building; she looked at the girl beside her out of the corner of her eye. Ryn’s expression was normal again; well, normal for her anyway and Maddie suddenly felt that maybe trying to get an answer out of her wouldn’t work and might make her clam up more and decided to let it go…at least for now.

She couldn’t help but let her discreet gaze drop to the hand that had grabbed hers and she almost stopped in surprise at what she saw on the inside of her forearm; there was a fair sized dark coloured patch forming and it looked…dry.

_‘What the hell?!’_ She tried to keep calm and pretend that she hadn’t noticed, although it made her think, didn’t Ryn keep that very same arm tucked into her side since this morning?

_‘So she knew that she was hurt and didn’t say anything?!’_ Her panic was close to rising to the surface. _‘Just calm down girl, you freak out she might freak out and you definitely can’t do that right in the street; just talk to her when you’re alone and offer your support.’_ She was thankful when they had reached the store that she had been looking for so she wouldn’t have to be thinking about this for now.

“Okay, let’s see if these are your size!” Maddie said as she led Ryn only a little ways into the store; a shorter distance than she was used to since the clothes for tall girls were a little further in the back. “See anything you like?”

It took a couple of hours to find enough that might last Ryn a while, mainly because she seemed to be having trouble deciding what she wanted; although the fact that she had to feel every single piece of clothing in the section, as if she had never felt clothes before besides what Maddie had lent her.

_‘Just another layer to add to the mystery that is Ryn,’_ she thought as the two girl stepped outside; both girls had a set of bags in each hand, yet another concept that Ryn had found strange, almost as strange as the fact that Maddie had never thought that she would use her allowance for a reason like this.

As they walked away, she heard what she thought was Janine’s voice from behind her.

“Is that Maddie? And who is that girl with her?” The tone wasn’t malicious, Maddie hadn’t expected it to be, Janine wasn’t the type but it did remind her that if Ryn did end up staying during the school year (never mind the whole summer) than there was going to be a lot of curiosity about her since nobody moved to Bristol Cove, they usually moved out…unless they were expected to stay, like Ben presumably was…

_‘Where did that come from?’_ Maddie wondered as she gave an inward shake of her head; damn her head was messed up since Ryn got here, she didn’t need to be thinking of the golden boy anyway…but she did have to think of how to ask Ryn about her skin. That wasn’t going to be awkward at all!

At least the crowd had thinned out a little and the people who were left had to be the tourists that had trickled into town in the hopes of beating out the crush of tourists that would come in the middle of summer; she knew that they had to be tourists because they weren’t paying attention to the two of them and she was relieved for that.

She was so deep into her thoughts that she almost didn’t hear her cell phone ring until she felt one of Ryn’s bags hit her leg and she could only guess that the noise had startled her.

“It’s just my phone,” she said with a laugh before she hooked the bag on her right side into her elbow before she reached into her purse and fished out the offending object and checked the caller I.D.

“Hey dad, what’s up?” she asked when she answered as she led the two of them away from the crowded sidewalk.

“Hey Maddie I just wanted to let you know that Xander’s visiting and I’ve just filled him in on our unexpected exchange student;” Dale said without missing a beat.

_‘And so it begins…and of course it had to be with Xander!’_ Maddie could definitely read between the lines; she could tell that her dad had given Xander the cover story and that was just fine with her despite the small amount of guilt she was feeling. She kind of like having this secret (almost) all to herself…

“Alright, we’re just heading back now so if he sticks around he can meet her himself;” she replied as she tried to trample down her reservations.

“I’ll ask him,” there was a moment of murmuring before Dale came back; “he said he’ll wait around.”

“Great, we’ll see you guys in a few!” She ended the call before she turned to Ryn who had been waiting patiently and motioned her to start walking again.

“My friend Xander is visiting us and is interested in meeting you;” Maddie explained.

“Friend,” Ryn repeated the word as if trying to understand the word.

“Yep, we’ve known each other since we were young, we’ve played together…” she trailed off as she saw some understanding enter Ryn’s eyes. “Do you have friends back home?”

“Not friends, family;” Ryn said in a way that sounded like she was a teacher correcting a student on something they got wrong and that just confused the hell out of Maddie, but she knew that she didn’t have time to question it. Nor could she question Ryn about the skin on her arm.

*~*~*

Ryn was still a little confused at the concept of “friend”, how was having a friend different than having a family? She knew that she needed to find out more, especially since the human’s seem to have different thoughts on family than her people do; humans share a dwelling with only their parents and maybe their siblings? They didn’t appear to sleep together like she did with her sister and the rest of her pack…how do they bond than?

_‘Humans are stranger than Ryn thought,’_ Ryn said to herself as they reached the entrance to Maddie’s home. She felt her guard come up, despite what Maddie said, or what she could only assume she meant that this human called Xander was safe to be near but Ryn would rather make her own judgement on that matter.

She had been feeling nervous the whole while that she and Maddie had been walking, most of it came from her being stared at by the other humans and she somewhat sensed that Maddie was nervous as well from the stares; however she also wondered if Maddie had seen her affliction…

She had known right away that she had grabbed onto Maddie with the wrong hand but knew that correcting the mistake would only bring more questions; no, she was quite sure that Maddie had noticed as her body language had changed somewhat. She was not looking forward to being confronted about this…

And there was also the discomfort that she had felt when she had exchanged stares with the same older female that she had seen the other day and she knew that Maddie had seen that too. She didn’t want to have to flee back into the water so soon…there was also the part of her that wondered just how much trouble she would be in (and bring back) when she returned.

Perhaps this had been a mistake…

“Hey Xander!” Maddie called out, snapping Ryn from her thoughts, to the strange male that looked to be around their age (or at least that of her human form); he had greeted Maddie by wrapping his arms fully around her and she felt a little upset by such close contact, there was nothing more she wanted to do than to rip his arms out.

“I assume you heard about Ryn from Ben,” Maddie said when he (finally) let go.

“Yeah, it definitely got Calvin talking that’s for sure;” Xander replied. “Frankly I was actually feeling a little hurt that you hadn’t told me about something this big; but your dad explained everything so I guess I have no choice but to forgive you.”

Ryn was beginning to feel a little irritated that this was cutting into the amount of time that she could spend with Maddie…

“Ryn,” Maddie called to her and she snapped out of her thoughts; “this is Xander, the friend that I told you about, and Xander, this is the girl who’s going to be staying with us for a while.”

Ryn barely paid the situation much attention, she was still feeling overwhelmed and simply went through the motion of saying “hello” and shaking his hand like Maddie had taught her to do before they had reached the house; while the girl in question was speaking with her father.

“I’d like to stay longer but I’m supposed to meet dad; nice meeting you Ryn!” Xander shouted before he left; much to Ryn’s relief, it was hard to keep up with a conversation that she only somewhat understood.

“I’m sorry Ryn,” she turned to the sound of Maddie’s voice. “You’re feeling a little trapped aren’t you? With all of these people staring and suddenly springing Xander on you like this…” She was sounding a little upset, she thinks.

“It’s okay,” was all she could say and Maddie smiled a little.

“Let’s get these bags in your room,” she said as she started upstairs; that was Ryn just noticed something.

“Where is mother?” she asked as she started following Maddie.

“Oh, dad said she went to the store, we didn’t have enough food for the four of us;” Maddie said without turning around. There was something in Maddie’s voice that she couldn’t identify and caused to pause for a moment before she resumed walking; Ryn wondered if her mother was sick because there was something off about her scent, it was pungent enough that she had difficulty being around the female.

Maddie on the other hand, was more than pleasant enough to be around and she wished that she could embrace her tightly if only to catch her scent always, however she was sure that such an advance would not be welcome; if only for the present time. Her sister had done something similar to comfort her when her mother had died as she enjoyed having her near her; however, the urge was different with Maddie.

Putting away the clothes themselves was a quick task but only because Maddie had helped to show her how to; when they were finished Maddie gently grabbed hold of the arm where her flesh was cracking.

“Ryn,” she said gently; “I know you’re hurt and have been trying to hide it.”

“Ryn fine,” the mermaid insisted as she gently pried herself from the human’s grasp despite how nice it was. “Ryn know how to take care of it, did not want to worry Maddie.”

“You still should have told me so I could have helped get what you need.”

“You do not get what Ryn need,” Ryn struggled to explain; “Ryn have to go heal herself. Wanted to wait as long as Ryn can until Ryn had to go.”

“Go? Go where?” Maddie looked both confused and hurt; which made her feel both sad and happy.

“Away, until Ryn was better, then come back here;” she said hoping to sooth her.

“How long would you be gone?” Maddie was becoming more upset, she could sense it but was trying to hide it.

“Do not know, only until Ryn get better;” was all she could offer and now she was beginning to feel upset knowing that she was upsetting…she was not sure what she could call Maddie, only that she did not want her to feel sad and she wanted Maddie to not feel that way because it was making her feel bad, like time when she was smaller and older sister had been upset that she had almost been killed by shark that she had tried to fight.

She felt something well up inside her, a sensation that had only been told about in stories, she felt the urge to sing THAT song; the one that was said to come when around a human and would sooth the soul. She enjoyed singing, she had sung to cheer herself up when she was sad before, perhaps singing will help Maddie?

She looked deep into her eyes and began to sing.

*~*~*

Ben was just so damn bored.

There was just so many hours he could play video games and still feel excitement; now that he thought about it, this was actually the first time that he actually got sick of playing at all. Then again, he had been feeling pretty restless ever since he had begun walking home after that conversation with Xander and Calvin; about Ryn…and Maddie to an extent.

_‘Why is this happening anyway? I’ve never gotten so restless over a girl, never mind two at the same time…’_ he sighed as he leaned back on the bed. Yeah, he was restless he wanted to be anywhere other than in his room; but there wasn’t really anywhere he could go, he knew that if he tried to go anywhere without telling them where, they would probably send someone to look for him.

It wouldn’t be the first time they did that, he had tried the rebellious approach when he was thirteen when he had snuck off to go to the mall on his own; while the person who had come to retrieve him hadn’t dared to cause a scene; his parents had no such discretion when they had been behind the tightly locked doors of his dad’s study.

And since then he never went out on his own…save for the occasional nighttime walk along the beach and party; he knew that he would never get into trouble doing either of those because he only went on his walks when he knew that there wouldn’t be a lot of people around and he could definitely count on the kids not saying anything, self-preservation and all that…

He felt himself dozing off and felt like a nap was better than being bored…

*~*~*

Maddie couldn’t get that song out of her head; ever since Ryn sang it to her she had been feeling surprisingly calm, she no longer even felt anxious about her injury…well, she was still a little worried but it took a back seat to her positive feelings. However, she was starting to feel a bit nervous about the fact these emotions seemed kind of false to her, just what had Ryn done to her?

After Ryn had sung her song; they had resumed her lessons and were now up to four letter words. As she had hovered over the other girls’ shoulder she tried her best not to look at her right arm despite Ryn not seemingly bothering to try and hide it anymore; but there was somewhat an additional problem now, she suddenly had the urge to look down her top that Ryn was still wearing…

_‘I’m so screwed…’_ she thought as she tried to push away her hormone laden thoughts to concentrate on helping Ryn improve her English skills. She was just thankful that the girl in question didn’t seem to have noticed her inner turmoil and that it wasn’t showing on her face considering that there was a mirror on the vanity.

“F-I-S-H,” Ryn said and Maddie could almost detect excitement in her voice and she was scribbling out the words faster and with somewhat more enthusiasm than she had before; the hand that she wasn’t writing with tapping the corresponding picture in a childlike way.

“You seem happy to see the fish,” she couldn’t help but comment.

“Yes, Ryn see fish in home,” Ryn replied as she finished writing on the line. “Eat lots of fish once, but have trouble finding fish for a time; everything different from Ryn being younger…” Maddie needed a moment to even try to decode that statement before she answered.

“So you ate fish all the time when you were a kid?” She started with her guessing; Ryn gave her the look that she now understood meant that she was trying to give an accurate answer to a question that she was trying to understand herself.

“Yes, when Ryn was hungry;” she finally said.

“But you have been having trouble getting fish for a while?” Maddie knew that she was prodding into something that might be upsetting, but she just couldn’t help wanting to know more about her.

“Yes, my people go hungry when none are found;” Ryn said before she quickly moved onto the next word, giving no outward sign that she was upset at telling something so personal to Maddie.

Maddie was quiet for a long time as Ryn’s implications swirled in her head.

_‘Could that be why she’s so skinny?’_ She wondered; _‘but she’s not unhealthily thin like she had been starving for a long time. At least from what I can see without taking her clothes off…’_ it took a lot of effort to keep her thoughts from veering in a direction that she wasn’t going to travel in…not yet anyway…

“Tired,” Ryn suddenly pulled Maddie from her struggles. Maddie looked out her window to see that the sun was almost set; they had been at this for a few hours after they had eaten dinner. “Want to sleep,” Ryn said as she put down the pencil and stood up.

“You don’t want to do something else?” Maddie inwardly smacked herself for this, she made it sound like she was trying to ask her on a date…

“No thank,” Ryn said shaking her head as she reached Maddie’s door and carefully opened it, still not sure if she was doing it properly.

“Good night than Ryn,” Maddie said softly as she watched her leave and heard the soft reply as the door closed. She didn’t even bother pretending that she hadn’t noticed Ryn rubbing her skin patch as she had walked to the door.

_‘Now what am I going to do?’_ She wondered as she flopped onto her bed, she didn’t feel like going out (especially if mom was still home and actually behaving herself); actually she didn’t feel like doing anything that didn’t involve Ryn…

_‘What the hell is the matter with me?’_ She sighed as she started to feel…giddy down below. _‘Oh great…’_ she tried to get rid of those thoughts but she was failing miserably; _‘looks like I’m going to have to take care of it than…’_

Just as she had satisfied herself and she was falling asleep, she heard footsteps outside her door; she jumped from the bed and opened her door a crack and saw Ryn’s back as she was carefully making her way downstairs and she was clutching her arm.

_‘I thought she was tired? What is she doing…she looks like she’s really in pain now!’_ She wanted to barge out and confront her, but she had to know where she was going; no, her best option was to follow Ryn and see where she went.

*~*~*

It was becoming more painful, she couldn’t take it anymore; she had to return to the water now!

Ryn groaned a little as she removed herself from the bed, she had thought that going to sleep earlier than she had truly wanted to would aid her; but that had been a foolish notion and now she truly had no other option but to go back until it disappeared, however, she didn’t want leave without telling Maddie where she was going…

_‘That bad idea,’_ she reminded herself as she carefully closed the door to her temporary room. She had just reached in front of Maddie’s room when she heard sounds coming from inside; they were strange noises and she could tell that Maddie was the one making them, despite her pain she was curious enough that she carefully opened her door a little and witnessed what she could only describe to herself as “self-mating”.

She wasn’t disturbed by mating of any kind; her people mated freely, especially if it was the proper season, they mated to make babies and sometimes females mated with each other…as long as it wasn’t with one’s mother, sisters, sisters of mother or daughters of mothers sisters…however, mating with one’s self as Maddie appeared to be doing was a concept that was strange to her.

She never took her eyes off of Maddie until she was finished, the pain in her arm reminded her of where she needed to be, it was a disappointment because she had the strong urge to join Maddie…she managed to tear her eyes away and close the door before she resumed her journey. As soon as she was outside of the house, she began to run to where she knew was the closest route to the beach; taking note of where she could hear the small amount of people that were out and about this late and adjusting her journey accordingly.

When she did finally make it to the sand, she didn’t go in right away despite the pain, she just sat down and looked at the water while thinking about what she had witnessed; she felt nice…thinking about Maddie, about mating with Maddie, yet she felt that there was still something missing…

_‘Must wait to think,’_ she thought as she doubled over as the patch nearly covered her entire forearm now; _‘must go!’_ She began to remove her (Maddie’s) clothing and simply tossed them aside with a silent apology before she began walking to the water.

“Ryn!” she heard suddenly and she turned to see that Maddie had arrived, to her surprise, Ben was with her and she felt somewhat happy to see the both of them here. She said nothing in response and ran the rest of the way as she heard them give pursuit and dove right into the water as soon as there was no more sand.

Her last thoughts were that both her humans had come to see her off.

*~*~*

It was dark when Ben woke up and a look at his bedside clock told him that there was no way that he was going to be able to get back to sleep; his body told him the same thing, he was too damn wired to try to go back to sleep now.

_‘Shit,’_ he thought as he got up from the bed; his stomach growled loudly before he cursed again. When he opened his bedroom door, his foot nudged into something, he looked down and smiled a little as he saw the covered platter and a note that he knew had to be from Sylvia; she always did this for him when he missed dinner for one reason or another.

He quietly took it in and devoured the contents; that solved his hunger problem, but not his pent up energy.

_‘I guess I’ll just go for a walk than,’_ he decided before he picked up the platter and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him to not arouse any suspicions. He didn’t have to be careful exactly, his mom always demanded that the floors be kept in excellent shape so the standard subtle creaking of a house wouldn’t bother her; oh if only she knew just how much that helped him sneak out at night…

He made a pit stop to the kitchen, no need to make Sylvia come back for it herself, before he made his way out the back entrance; his usual mode of escape. He didn’t have a specific destination in mind; he just let his feet carry him wherever. However, he did notice that he was pretty close to the beach; then a flash of something passed in front of him.

_‘Is that Ryn?’_ He wondered as he took in her brown hair and the half of the face that he had seen; without thinking, he began to go after her, almost running into Maddie in the process.

“Woah Maddie!” He shouted as he managed to stop a couple of steps from her.

“Oh, Ben!” She said surprised; “did you see where Ryn went?”

“Yeah, that way!” He replied as he pointed in that direction.

“Thanks!” She said before she took off and Ben followed despite not knowing why, he just felt that he had to…

Neither of them spoke as they ran to the beach and eventually they saw Ryn in the distance.

“Ryn!” Maddie called out and the girl turned around and that was when Ben (and he could assume Maddie) realized that she was completely naked with clothes scattered around on the sand. He managed to tear his eyes away from her but not before he had caught a glimpse of her body and his face became aflame as he tried to rid himself of those thoughts. He only looked up when he heard a splash and he and Maddie both ran to the water and he was sure that Maddie’s thoughts were racing too at what they were seeing.


	5. Above and Below

Ryn didn’t dive very deep, she didn’t have the urge to and she could assume that once she did rejoin her pack it would be difficult to be able to leave again; sister would never let her out of her sight for a long time if ever again. However part of her feared about returning to the surface world now that she knew that not one, but two humans might know her true form; she knew that she should stay down there but somehow she still felt their presence and was drawn to them also.

_‘Her humans,’_ she thought irrationally. _‘It cannot be, after what had happened so long ago between a human male and a female of our kind…’_ despite this logic, her primal brain strongly disagreed at the impossibility. Her senses were overwhelmed when she had been near the both of them, if they were all together at once…perhaps she needed time away to calm herself.

But first, she desperately wanted to see them one last time before she went away; she steeled herself before she pushed herself back to where she thought they could see her.

*~*~*

Neither Ben nor Maddie were sure that they had just seen Ryn dive straight into the water and without clothes nonetheless, but that was nothing compared to the confusion they felt when they saw something swim back towards them; despite common sense telling them it was a bad idea, they both moved towards the water.

“What?” they both breathed in unison as the shape moved towards them and once it was close enough, poked its head from the water.

“Ryn?” Maddie asked quietly as she reached out a hand; she didn’t try to touch the strange being, but just let her hand hover as she waited. The creature let out a tiny chirping noise before she rose up further and nuzzled the hand; both humans took stock at what they were seeing.

Instead of the peach skinned human that they had seen, Ryn was now a pale gray, her face had changed its shape a little bit too, her slightly opened mouth revealed nothing but razor sharp teeth and her eyes now resembled a sharks. She had scales on the lower half of herself that she revealed and despite the murkiness of the water, if they were questioned separately about what they saw, they would both swear that they saw a fish tail…

“Mermaid…” Ben breathed as Ryn continued to nuzzle the human girl’s hand; feeling a little bolder now, he slowly inched his way closer to them. Ryn seemed to sense his presence as she stopped her ministrations and reached an arm towards him, when he was close enough, she wrapped those wicked claws around his wrist but she wasn’t hurting him.

No one did anything for a couple of breaths, but it was Ryn who took the initiative, she reached out with her other hand and grabbed onto Maddie’s hand that was still outstretched and pushed the two human hands together so they were touching; almost clasping. She let out one last chirp before she dove back into the water too quickly for them to say anything.

*~*~*

Ryn’s mind was somewhat calmer as she dove farther from the shore, but still stayed near the surface; her body was in less pain now, but she didn’t want to go back yet, not until she thought that she would be able to stay on land longer before having to return. She was still worried that they would be alone without her, but that was also fading as she hoped that they understood what she was trying to say when she took their hands the hand she did; they should still have each other for company.

Her mind became distracted from these thoughts when she smelt prey, a large one and would be enough to prevent hunger for a while.

*~*~*

“That was weird,” was all Ben could say as his hand still touched Maddie’s and for some reason didn’t let go (nor did he want to which led to some emotions that were just confusing for him).

“It’s still weird,” Maddie pointed out as she slowly (reluctantly) pulled her hand away from Ben’s; the adrenaline from running and this revelation (and her more personal activity from earlier in the evening) finally caught up with her and she collapsed into the sand.

“You okay?” Ben asked as he sat down next to her, his heart racing from seeing (and touching) the impossible.

“Just gotta rest for a minute,” _‘or several,’_ “I ran the whole way when I realized that she was leaving the house;” she huffed out as she tried to catch her breath. Awkward silence ensued as they both tried to process what had just happened; both wanted to say something, but didn’t know what at first. It was Ben who finally broke the silence.

“I take it that you didn’t know about this,” was all he could think of to say and Maddie didn’t have to ask for clarification about what he was talking about.

“Didn’t even cross my mind,” Maddie said truthfully; “I just found her after that party from the other night had ended, she was lying on the beach not wearing any clothes so I thought the worst had happened.” She didn’t have to say more than that.

“I checked her over and saw that she didn’t look hurt accept for a few scrapes and that there were drag marks leading from the water, I guess that alone was a sign;” she gave a self-depreciating chuckle.

“I wouldn’t have thought “mermaid” either,” Ben said calmly and she gave a small smile in response. “Anyway, so you took her home with you then?”

“Yeah, but it was a bit of a chore since she didn’t seem to understand what I was saying at first, then I had to call my dad which could have been worse considering how late I was up. We weren’t entirely sure what to do with her, dad was the one who came up with the exchange student story even though he hates lying, but it crossed our minds that she was running from something so he was willing to make an exception...”

“Nope, I wouldn’t have made a connection either;” Ben said as he stared out into the water; Maddie matching his actions.

“Still hard to believe though,” she said thoughtfully; “that mermaids are actually real and that I had one in my house and staying across the hall from me!”

“Or that I even just talked to one; that alone is incredible!” Ben said cheerfully almost as if in a daze. Maddie had no response, her face was screwed up in concentration as if something was falling into place in her mind.

“What is it?” he asked when she didn’t say anything.

“I think there was a reason that she had to go in the water now,” Maddie said with realization in her tone; “she had this weird dry and discoloured patch of skin that she had tried to hide all day but I noticed it when she…” she trailed off so as not take up too much time explaining it. “Anyway, when I asked her about it she only told me that she knew how to take care of it; at least that’s what I understood, I guess she meant that going back into the water would make it go away.” Ben had just stared at her in fascination as she talked; they lapsed into silence again once she was finished. Then something came to Maddie.

“Hey Ben, what were you doing out here anyways?” She asked curiously and Ben felt a little relaxed at how non-judgmental her voice was.

“Couldn’t sleep, so I thought taking a walk would help; it always does.” He said casually.

“So this isn’t your first time out this late and it’s not because of a party?” She almost jumped at how teasing her voice was, and she could almost dare to say that it was flirtatious and she was pretty surprised at herself for this and she could swear that Ben was blushing despite how hard it was to see in the dark.

“Yeah, one of my few acts of rebellion;” Ben had no idea why he was being so open, but he wasn’t going to question it completely as it wasn’t like he really had anybody to confide in, he had a strong feeling that Maddie wasn’t the type to gossip anyway.

“Although this time it was because I got so bored that I fell asleep and missed dinner and couldn’t get back to sleep,” he added.

_‘How could you bored when you’ve got all that money to burn?’_ She wondered but there was something in his voice that told her not to say it aloud.

“Besides, coming out here is one of the few times in my life that I’m not under my parents’ thumbs;” he was borderline angry but trying to reign it in.

_‘Wow, I guess being the golden boy isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be…’_ Maddie was a little surprised that he was being so open like this; it was a stark contrast to the quiet golden boy that she was used to seeing. Maybe that was why he was even confiding in her at all, besides the fact that they shared the same bizarre secret.

_‘Tit for tat I guess.’_ “I just can’t wait to get out of here so I can be away from my mom;” she admitted. Ben hesitates, his hand twitched as if it wanted to move over to her but he held back at the last moment before speaking.

“I don’t like listening when people talk about other people,” he began cautiously; “but are things really that bad with your mom?”

“Let’s just say that I try to be out of the house as much as possible and avoid her as much as possible when I’m at home,” she replied before her face scrunched up again as if thinking.

“It’s funny what you just said about missing dinner just reminded me of something that Ryn told me earlier…” she trailed off wondering if she really should be telling him something this personal about Ryn.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was gentle and her resolved wavered a bit.

“I’ve been teaching her how to read and write,” Maddie began and Ben looked at her intently; “we had moved to four letter words this afternoon and when we got to the word “fish” she started talking about how she ate fish all of the time when she was a child, but lately her people have been having trouble finding fish and that they would go hungry when they couldn’t find any.”

“Overfishing,” Ben said dully. “More than likely anyways.”

“You know a bit about that?” she asked curiously.

“Yeah, my dad and the fishermen that he does business with complain about how the government has had to limit what they can catch; I did a little research of my own and found out that overfishing was what made the government crackdown the way that they have. I guess the damage done is actually worse than anyone thinks…but there is something about that that I don’t get…”

“What is it?” she was intrigued now and impressed that he had felt the need to look up something this important on his own.

“That kind of overfishing to dangerous levels to fish took decades if not the past century,” he explained; “if she was eating better as a kid and not now, that might mean that she might actually be a lot older than how she looks as a human.”

“It would be stupid to assume that mermaids age the same way as humans do,” she pointed out while having trouble saying the word ‘mermaid’ a little bit; as if actually saying it was what made it a reality.

“True, but it does make me wonder just how old she actually is;” Ben replied quizzically.

“Maybe we can ask her when she comes back,” Maddie stated rather than asked and it didn’t escape either ones notice that she also used “when” rather than “if”; a hope that they both knew that they shared.

They both turned their attention back to the water, feeling a little too awkward now to talk further so they simply sat in the sand and watched and listened to the waves crashing softly onto the shore; Maddie was still feeling a little relaxed from Ryn’s song, she could only assume it was because she was watching the water but it wasn’t as strong as before as she began to worry about what she was going to tell her dad if Ryn didn’t come back soon cause there was no way that she could tell him the truth…right? She let out a small sigh but didn’t realize how loud it had been until she saw Ben turn to her out of the corner of her eye.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Just trying to figure out what I’m going to tell my dad if she’s not back by morning,” she replied.

“Actually it’s technically morning right now,” he informed with a look at his watch; “and pretty early to.”

“How early?”

“That if we don’t get back now we’ll only catch a couple hours of sleep.”

_‘That explains why I’m suddenly feeling so tired now,’_ she thought before she sighed again.

“I hate the thought of leaving now,” she confessed; “but I can’t wait around all night for her to come back. And I have no idea about what I am going to tell my dad if she’s not back by the time everyone gets out of bed…”

“How well does she know the way?”

“I guess if she knew the way to the beach than she would know the way back to the house if she comes back in the meantime…” Maddie said thoughtfully as she got up from the sand with Ben mirroring her actions.

“Do you want some company on your way home?” he asked managing to hide how nervous he felt in asking this question; having no idea why he was even nervous at all, it was just Maddie, a pretty girl…

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said somewhat shyly as she felt the remnants of Ryn’s song fade from her brain and more accurate emotions began to take over.

“Hang on, what about the clothes?” Ben asked as he motioned to the clothing that Ryn had left behind.

“Leave them,” Maddie said after a moment; “she’ll need them to cover herself if she gets back.” No more words were said between them as they walked away from the beach; but they were walking a lot closer together than they had been before.

*~*~*

Ryn’s swim had not entirely gone as planned.

After she had given Maddie and Ben her message as best as she could, she swam away to find some sustenance that was more to her liking; throughout her time on land she had begun to tolerate human food, perhaps even enjoy them, however it was admittedly pleasant to come back and be in her element and that included being able to hunt for herself again.

Her people taught their children to hunt as soon as they were born, more or less, so she had been able to hunt on her own for a very long time; however hunting was another enjoyable activity when it was done with a companion, not for safety reasons, but as a form of social bonding.

Despite having eaten a while before she had gone outside to return to her waters, she was feeling hungry again, presumably from being up later than she had been on land previously, and had felt that it was best to satiate the hunger before she returned to land; which she wanted to do immediately. A quick glance at her arm had told her that her skin was becoming whole again, she just needed to keep watching it until her color had returned to the way it was supposed to be, then she would go back.

She felt that she could do two things at once, hunt for food and the time she would take in hunting would aid in her healing, however she knew that she couldn’t dive into deep waters as it was likely that she would be seen by her tribe if she dared to go any deeper than she was swimming already and she could not swim outside of her territory for there would be a strong chance that she would be spotted by a different tribe and not be able to return to her humans alive…

She pushed those thoughts from her mind as she dared to swim towards the territorial boundary between her pack and the nearest one as she looked for anything that could sate her hunger until it was time for that human feeding time they called ‘breakfast’. She was as quick as she could and she was becoming impatient because if she failed in her hunt it meant that she would have to go deeper and lose more time.

Eventually a scent caught her nose and she knew that it was something big and it wasn’t the small fish that swam together that made it easier for her people to catch them; she darted in the direction and saw that it was one of those animals with the multiple pointed teeth, except that this was not as big as the ones she always saw, this was a baby and it appeared to be alone…

Without more thought, she charged at it and before it could move, she dug her claws into its sides and bit into the eye as it thrashed about until it finally stilled; she enjoyed chewing it down until there was only a few bits of flesh left stuck together. She didn’t wish to waste them so she grabbed them and as hard as she could, she threw them deeper into the abyss where she hoped that a few of her pack might find them and use them for nourishment.

She suddenly was rammed from behind and she struggled as she kicked her fins to help her regain her control as she faced her attacker and she realized that it had to be the mother of the baby that she had just killed; the creature didn’t give her a chance to fight back as it lunged and managed to grab her arm with one of its sets of teeth and she gave a cry of pain and anger as she reached out her free arm to scratch at the thing that was trying to kill her.

_‘I must live, I must get back to my humans!’_ She roared as her claws ripped at the creature, she didn’t try to tear her arm away from its teeth because it was known that doing so would rip the flesh from her bones and she did not need such damage when she wanted to return to land so soon as such an injury would need a long passage of time to heal.

Eventually its resolve wavered as the wounds became deeper until it eventually let go, she wretched her injured arm away from its range before using it in unison with her other one until it stopped moving; she channeled her rage into swimming above it and slamming her tail into it hard enough that it made its descent to join its unfortunate offspring.

She hissed as she assessed the damage, there was a decent bite mark that had been left but there was a slight bit of flesh torn from a couple of the teeth marks and that made her mad despite how it was already healing a little. She had already swam quite far from the shore that she wanted to go back to and she knew that she had to make the journey quickly if she wished to be back soon; however she poked her head up occasionally to look at the sky to see if the bright sky ball that humans called the ‘sun’ had come up, she had learned that this was how humans could tell if it was time for them to be active or not.

By the time she had reached the shore, transformed and had found the clothing that she had left behind on the beach, the sun was just beginning to rise and she knew that it was only a matter of time before everyone in Maddie’s dwelling would begin waking up and she had a long way back…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding Ryn's song for the past couple of chapters, I think because she isn't fully grown yet the effects might not be as harmful, it's not glass shattering like Hope's was, but it's not at a brain destroying stage yet. Also, Ryn's reasons for singing were different than canon so...


	6. Awkward Moments, Pretty Much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank the user Sblck for their bookmark and their kudos as well as the three guests who left their own kudos!

Maddie groggily woke up to the sound of her shower running and was very confused as to who might have been using it. She had a pleasant walk back to her house with Ben, they had talked about random things while avoiding the subject of the mermaid that had been on land; after they had said their goodbyes (which had come about after an exchange of personal numbers) she had managed to quietly slip inside and didn’t make a sound as she had gone back upstairs and took off her sand encrusted clothes before she had fallen asleep.

A surge of hope filled her chest.

_‘It couldn’t be, could it?’_ She jumped from the bed, forgetting about her lack of clothing in her excitement, and ran to the door and tested the handle and found it unlocked; which gave her more hope since a mermaid wouldn’t know how to lock a door, right? She carefully stepped inside and nearly fell over in shock, because it seemed like Ryn didn’t know how to close a shower curtain either…

_‘Oh god…’_ she thought as her brain computed that she was in fact seeing Ryn in all her glory and she was glad that her dark skin didn’t easily convey just how red from embarrassment (and maybe something else) she was. Ryn must have heard her come in despite how quiet she had been trying to be because the mermaid in question had turned toward her.

“Maddie!” she cried out happily as she jumped out of the shower and enveloped her in a hug and that was when Maddie remembered her own lack of clothing and she sorely wanted to bash her head into the wall; especially when Ryn’s own…assets were right on top of hers! And then there was the rest of their bodies…

_‘Maddie focus!’_ “Hi Ryn, when did you get back?” she managed to ask in a strangled voice as she realized that Ryn was giving out a bit of strength in her hug and a part of her wondered if her being a mermaid gave her some kind extra strength that humans might not be capable of…

“Just now,” Ryn replied as she motioned to the scattered clothes that Maddie hadn’t noticed until that moment; “wanted to get back soon, came to wash sand off.” That was when Maddie realized that what she had seen Ryn do was just washing and she had never smelt like she was using her products…

“Hey Ryn, how come you aren’t using my soaps and hair products?” She was sure that she already knew that answer but just wanted to confirm.

“What are those?” Ryn asked as she finally let go of Maddie (much to the latter’s relief for more than one reason).

“Here,” Maddie said walking to the shower and showing her each bottle while doing her best to explain what they did.

“My people don’t need those kinds of things,” Ryn said as Maddie finished.

“I guess your people don’t sweat?” Maddie asked trying to be casual while hiding just how giddy she was feeling that Ryn was somewhat acknowledging that she wasn’t crazy in thinking that she was a mermaid.

“No, I think,” Ryn replied; “we do not need any kind of smell that is not our own. Why do humans need to cover themselves in fake scents?”

“Humans tend to smell bad when we sweat and when we don’t bathe for a long time,” Maddie tried to explain; “we try to use strong scents that we consider to smell nice to try and help cover up the bad smells. Except some don’t care about that…”

“I have noticed bad smells come from some humans,” Ryn said; “make nose want to go away.” Maddie couldn’t help but let out an amused snort at her statement.

“Will Maddie show me how to use them?” Ryn asked almost innocently but Maddie couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to Ryn’s request than that and that reminded Maddie of their lack of clothing at present.

_‘I shouldn’t…’_ “Sure.”

*~*~*

_‘This is nice,’_ Ryn thought as she felt Maddie’s fingers run through her hair as she showed her how to use the “conditioner”; it was almost as nice as watching Maddie show her how to use “body wash” by using her own body to teach her. Despite being in human form, it almost reminded her of being in the ocean and seeing ones form in its purest; Maddie was certainly more beautiful now without all of those clothes covering her…

Ryn was feeling a rush of emotion through her, she identified it as affection but it was a different affection to how she felt around her sister and around her pack; it was strange to feel such a thing, this had never happened to her before, she wanted to show Maddie how she was feeling, but didn’t know how to say it or show it. How did humans show affections?

She was still somewhat lost in her thoughts as Maddie helped rinse out her hair and they finished and dried off; Ryn knew that she had to ask Maddie about the night before.

“Maddie and Ben saw Ryn in water,” she said bluntly as they put the towels back on the rack.

“We did,” Maddie confessed.

“Did Maddie stay with Ben?”

“For a while, we talked a bit before he walked me home and I went to bed;” Maddie informed her as she opened the door to venture back to her room with Ryn following.

“That was what Ryn wanted,” Ryn informed her; “Ryn thought that you would need each other while Ryn was in water.”

“Why do you say that?” Maddie asked curiously as she rifled through her drawers for something to wear. Ryn didn’t say anything at first, she didn’t know how to verbalize what she was feeling for the two humans.

“Ryn like being with Ben and Maddie,” she ultimately decided on; “Ryn thought that Ben and Maddie might like being together when Ryn not here.” She wasn’t sure if Maddie understood what she was struggling to convey; but she hoped that Ben and Maddie talking would lead the three of them to spend more time together, she wanted to learn as much as she could about humans and she found that she really wanted to tell them about her family.

“You really want to spend time with us?” Maddie asked as she fished out pieces of clothing that she found acceptable to wear; she even began putting on her underwear without so much as batting an eyelash to her presence.

“Yes, as much as I can;” she admitted as she continued to stare at Maddie, almost in a trance as she looked at the human female’s body and felt disappointed that humans felt that they had to cover themselves the way that they did. She began to wonder just what Ben looked like under his clothes…

“Are you ready to move on to five lettered words after breakfast?” Maddie asked her and Ryn snapped out of her more primal thoughts.

“Yes, Ryn is ready to learn!” She nodded enthusiastically as she went to Maddie’s door, but Maddie got there first.

“Maybe I should check to see if there’s anyone that can see you before you go to get dressed?” She asked with a small laugh before she opened it lightly and peered out. “Looks like you’re in the clear, see you in a few minutes.”

“Yes,” Ryn confirmed before she walked back to her room and quietly entered; surprisingly she had a lot of fun looking through her shopping bags looking for the clothes that she felt like wearing that day.

*~*~*

Ben felt like crap when he woke up, not only because he didn’t get a lot of sleep during the night, but he also realized upon awakening that he had in fact needed to get to the North Star again; as he would have to everyday until school started again. His late night with Maddie really drained him…

_‘Bad choice of words Pownall!’_ He thought as he dragged himself out of bed; thinking quickly he sent a quick text to Maddie:

_Going back to the North Star today, hang out later?_

_‘Why did I just do that?’_ He wondered as he set his phone down before he went into the shower, he knew that it was kind of a moot point considering where he was going but he needed to remove any evidence off of his body that would tell his parents that he had been out late. At least it was early enough that maybe his hair would dry at least a little bit before he went down to breakfast…

When he got out, he just sat at his desk and began to be lost in his thoughts as he waited for that knock on the door from Sylvia. No, he knew why he had sent that text to Maddie, it was because he genuinely enjoyed talking with such a hot girl (and yes he was going to admit that he found her attractive) and because he was starting to quickly call her a friend.

She was so…genuine, compared to other girls that had previously tried to get his attention; mainly because she hadn’t been trying at all. They also had a little in common, they both had problems with at least one of their parents (although he was sure that living under the Sheriff’s roof couldn’t be easy either); albeit being on opposing ends of the spectrum, his parents cared too much about appearances while Maddie’s mom didn’t seem to care about how her behaviour affected Maddie…

It was strange…one would have thought that they would have bonded over their shared problems a long time ago, then again, it wasn’t like either of them liked to advertise how miserable their home lives were; in fact, they probably would never have begun really talking to each other now if he hadn’t started talking to Ryn…

Oh boy, Ryn, now that was something he really needed to wrap his head around; he had initially only gone up and talked to her cause there was this cute girl that he hadn’t seen before (and likely wouldn’t know about his family), so why not? Now it turns out that she was more than just that, she was proof that mermaids were in fact real and living by their tiny mermaid obsessed little town.

Then could that mean that the old story about Charles Pownall and his mermaid could actually be true? If that was the case, then how much of the story used for the festival’s children’s play was based on truth? Could Ryn know anything about it? Maybe he could just ask her the next time he saw her?

_‘If I get to see her again,’_ he reminded himself; because who knew how long she was going to stay in the water? His life had really been turned upside down and it took only what, two days? And to think the only interesting thing that he thought was going to happen to him during the summer was the work on the North Star…

The expected knock on his door pulled him from his thoughts; when he answered her inquiry he didn’t have to entirely fake the tiredness in his voice. He got dressed as slowly as he possibly could in order to divert any suspicion of already being up off himself; if there was one thing he learned about his parents, it was that it took careful planning in doing something if he wanted to fool them.

Only his mother and brother were sitting at the table, he could only assume that his father had already gone to work a little early; not unusual and he wasn’t going to complain, he could somewhat handle these two more than he could his father. He exchanged “good mornings” and sat down to begin the feast; he piled it on knowing that he was really going to need it for the day.

“You excited for another day fishing?” Elaine asked.

“Yeah, it was…fun being outside;” he replied and he found that he was actually being sincere despite how aching his muscles had been before he had taken his nap, in fact his video game marathon had been an attempt to take his mind off of his suffering.

“I’m just glad to hear that you’re actually going out and not hiding in your room to play video games…again, I like this new mature you;” Elaine said happily as Ben tried to hide his embarrassment from both parts of that statement.

“The work is hard though…” he mused aloud.

“That would explain why I found you dead asleep when I came to get you for dinner!” Doug couldn’t help but chime in and Ben felt that familiar annoyance that came from having a younger sibling creep up on him.

“That won’t last forever!” Ben shot at him. _‘It better not anyway, I would never live it down with Doug if I kept falling asleep like that…’_

“Oh Doug,” Elaine sighed; “don’t begrudge your brother the chance to do something outside the house…”

_‘And make me and your father look like the town’s greatest parents,’_ Ben thought bitterly and his chewing was the only thing that prevented his feelings from showing on his face.

“I think this will be good for him to know this part of the business,” she continued completely unaware of her sons hostile thoughts; “it will help him when he takes over from your father. Right honey?”

“Whatever,” Ben groused, his mood now soured and was just wanting to get away.

“Now don’t be like that,” Elaine chided.

“If Ben gets to inherit the company, can I still work for him?” Doug asked and Ben inwardly groaned as he seemed to ask this question at breakfast every other day; a habit that been happening for years now…

“Of course you can,” Elaine comforted as Ben inwardly mimicked her usual speech; “in fact your father would love it if you both took care of the company so he’ll know that it’s in good hands!”

_‘One pair anyway.’_

“I gotta go,” Ben said after he had scarfed down the last of his food; “Mr. McClure doesn’t like it when someone is late remember?”

“Of course dear!” Elaine gave a bright smile; “I have something that I need to do today, Doug…” Ben tuned out the rest of what she was saying as he walked away, he didn’t want his day ruined again and he was glad that his parents hadn’t chided him for his hasty exit during yesterday’s breakfast either.

_‘Maybe I should be getting up earlier if only to avoid this crap…’_ Ben sighed when he thought he was far enough away from the house so no one could hear him. Yes, he definitely couldn’t wait to be away at college and away from all of this, just having a summer job wasn’t going to be enough anymore.

_‘Except that I have no idea where I’m going to go, much less what I’m going to study!’_ He gave an angry huff at the reminder about he may not even have a say in his own future; he was sure that his dad would be handing him pamphlets of colleges that had good business degrees and he was doubly sure that his mom would vet and only approve the ones that were the closest to the town, or as close as a possible faraway city could be…he was getting a headache just thinking about it.

He had to get his head clear now if he wanted to concentrate on working.

*~*~*

_Ryn came back before I woke up, we’ll see you later._

Maddie had sent the text as Ryn was busy writing, as she put her phone away Ryn was pointing at one of the pictures.

“That what bit me,” she said and Maddie looked at her in shock.

“What do you mean?” She asked (demanded) with concern.

“This,” Ryn said as she showed Maddie her arm; “it healed on way back from attack place,” the bite on Ryn’s arm had almost faded but there were still shiny spots that would take a long time to heal while she was in human form.

“Why were you fighting with a shark?” Maddie asked with wide eyes, shocked to find out that a mermaid would tangle with something that fierce.

“Shark,” Ryn repeated; “S-H-A-R-K!” She began writing the word down quickly and accurately; Maddie would otherwise be impressed at how confident she had gotten with her lessons.

“Ryn, the bite;” Maddie prodded when Ryn had finished writing.

“Yes, angry mother try to kill me,” Ryn’s voice was casual and Maddie felt a little bit on edge from her attitude. “I kill baby to eat and had not seen her until she hit me, my fault.” She concluded. Maddie would be lying if she said that she didn’t feel a little nauseous from Ryn’s story.

“Do your people normally eat sharks?” Maddie asked as curiosity (and maybe some morbid fascination) took over her.

“We eat what we get hands on,” Ryn replied; “including ones that make other animals sick.”

“Like what?” Maddie asked, nausea now gone.

“Animal that have…” Ryn trailed off as her face scrunched up in a cute way as she tried to tell Maddie what she meant; “long things on end? Like curtain?” She used a hand to make a waving motion and Maddie tried connecting the dots.

“Jellyfish maybe?” Maddie asked in amazement considering everyone knew that they weren’t exactly a common food item.

“Jellyfish, J-E-L-L-Y-F-I-S-H? Like food jelly?” Ryn asked and Maddie nodded.

“What about their stingers at the end? What if they touch you?” Maddie asked.

“Feel funny, but not hurt, taste good;” Ryn said as wrote down “jellyfish” despite it looking silly next to the five letter words that she had been practicing.

“Are there other animals besides sharks that can eat you?” Maddie asked with some concern.

“No,” Ryn replied to Maddie’s relief; “shark come when we eat babies, not likely to eat Ryn’s people as we have strength to help fight. One exception is when shark come after our babies, but that only happen when baby cries; not happen often as babies mostly know not to cry when born as they know it attracts predators.” This was quite possibly the longest explanation that Ryn had ever given, she went back to her writing as Maddie digested (pun definitely not intended) what she had just said.

“How do your babies know not to cry?” she asked. Ryn didn’t stop writing, but she did answer.

“Mothers tell them when they are inside, they listen;” she replied and that made Maddie think about the conversation that she had with Ben about Ryn’s age.

“Have you ever had a baby?”

“Too young still,” Ryn replied; “know because I hear others talk to their babies, sister did with daughter and she did not cry when born.”

“You have a sister?” Maddie asked shocked; so that meant that mermaids had families like humans…

“Yes, older and only one, no brothers;” Ryn seemed to have anticipated Maddie’s next questions. There was a longing in her voice that made Maddie pause and decide to shift the topic a little ways away.

“Humans actually talk to their children too when they’re pregnant,” Maddie said as she recalled her aunts’ pregnancy; “but we’re not entirely sure if they can even hear us…”

“Humans not so different from my kind,” Ryn said or so Maddie thought since her voice was quiet and nothing else was said as Ryn continued with her lessons. It was many hours later in the afternoon when she received a reply text from Ben:

_Can we all meet up at the beach at about midnight? There’s something that I want to ask Ryn and I would prefer that there was as few people around as possible to overhear._

Maddie couldn’t help but raise a brow at that; but she turned to Ryn.

“Hey Ryn,” she asked and the mermaid looked up at her. “Ben wants to meet up with us at the beach at midnight, he wants to ask you something without being overheard; you wanna go?”

“Yes,” Ryn said getting a nice feeling in her at the thought of seeing Ben again; “but what is midnight?”

“I’ll explain about how we keep time while we get there,” Maddie said with a laugh as she sent the affirmative to Ben. “We’ll just go to bed early and I’ll come get you when it’s time to go, okay?”

“Okay,” Ryn copied before putting her head down again and not a lot more was said between them until they had said their “good night’s” before they faked heading to bed.


	7. Tough Questions, Emotional Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for some uncomfortable revelations...

Ben had a tougher time in sneaking out that night; he did genuinely fall asleep soon after he had got home from the job but that was so he could have enough energy to be able to see them. The problem was that he didn’t wake up until eleven p.m. so he only had an hour to eat the dinner left for him and to get down to the beach; but he hit a bit of a snag when he saw that the light was on in the kitchen when he went to return the platter.

_‘This isn’t gonna work!’_ he thought as he made his way back upstairs carefully. He wasn’t sure who was down there but he knew that he would be in trouble either way so he needed a new plan…

_‘There is always the balcony…’_ he pointed out and he cringed at the thought. Normally he wouldn’t dare try to scale it considering the drop below, hence why he always used the back door; but desperate times called for desperate measures and there were a couple of trees that could be of use to him. He took a deep breath before he jumped from the railing and barely managed to grab onto one of the branches before he fell and maybe killed himself.

_‘Getting back up is going to be a bitch…’_

*~*~*

For Maddie, the hardest part of pretending to go to bed early was how tired she had been genuinely becoming and how close she was to falling asleep by the time ten-thirty rolled around; she didn’t think that she would be able to stay awake any longer than that so she got out of bed and crept to Ryn’s door and carefully opened it only to find the mermaid in question had fallen asleep.

_‘She has been through a lot the past few days, maybe it all finally caught up with her?’_ Maddie wondered as she walked up to the bed. She knew that it was just a bit too early to wake her up but at the same time she felt like a weirdo just standing there and watching her sleep; but she couldn’t really help herself, she looked so peaceful and innocent…almost cute?

_‘Except that she’s not as fragile as she looks, asleep or awake,’_ she reminded herself as she recalled their earlier conversation about a mermaids’ dietary habits. Just what were mermaids really like underwater? She wasn’t sure if Ryn’s behaviour with her and Ben could really be counted on to reflect her kind in general; after all, they weren’t exactly strangers to her…

If Ryn was telling the truth and Maddie had no reason to believe she wasn’t, her people had to be fierce if they were capable of tangling with sharks, never mind being able to eat them while being so nonchalant about it; admittedly, that only made her more curious to learn more about them.

_‘Definitely not the mermaids we grew up with, Disney can eat their hearts out!’_ She thought with a smirk as she saw Ryn twitch a little, she kept her distance in case she was waking up; but she didn’t even open her eyes. If mermaids really were that fierce, it was difficult to see that in Ryn, she was, well, almost childlike in the way that she wanted to learn…

_‘I better get her up now before I get too mushy…’_ she reached over and carefully shook her, she hissed a little before she opened her eyes; Maddie had to keep from laughing at how funny the sound was and Ryn seemed to calm when she saw her.

“It time?” Ryn asked sleepily blinking at her.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

*~*~*

Ben carefully made his way from his house, his fear of falling was causing his heart to race, so he walked as slow as he dared considering the time crunch that he was under to help slow down his heart rate.

_‘I definitely need to start thinking of working out more,’_ he told himself; while his nap helped with the soreness that he was feeling from working, this day hadn’t been any easier on his muscles and his trip down the tree hadn’t made things any easier. He knew it was because of his skinny frame, he had gone through a bit of a growth spurt the year previous, but had no weight to help fill it out; although he should probably change that if only to help him out this way…

_‘First though is getting my driver’s license, so I will be able to get out of town and have more freedom and stuff to do; at least my parents are letting me take the course in school this year.’_ He thought with some relief, yes a license was what he’d been waiting for pretty much his entire life; there was no way that his parents would turn him down if he ever wanted to borrow one of their vehicles, he was their golden boy after all…

Being able to get out of town would be an entirely different challenge as he would have to be careful to gain their trust first; but he knew that it wouldn’t take a lot if he just behaved himself. He really wanted to be able to leave town when he wanted without having to wait for college; at least that was his initial goal. Now, he couldn’t help but picture himself travelling with a certain pair of girls with him…

He spent the rest of the way trying to keep his head in the present; not thinking about a future that may or may not happen.

*~*~*

Ryn and Maddie were quiet at first as they made their way down the backstreets to avoid the main roads and the risk of being seen; they had been luckier than Ben, Dale was working late and Maddie could only assume that Susan was either in her own room, whether she was behaving and sleeping or had somehow snuck something inside and was sleeping off a high was a debate and was something that Maddie would be happy to leave to her dad to find out.

But there had been something that was nagging at Maddie…

“Ryn, why did you come here, from the water?” she asked and Ryn turned to her.

“Was curious, about the humans, you are so different from us;” she replied. “Have watched from afar for a long time, but family say never to go near…” she trailed off.

“Why?”

“Because something happen, long time ago, my people do not forget when bad things happen.” Ryn said almost hypnotically as if repeating lines that had long since been memorized and both these things gave Maddie a cold chill.

“What happened?” Maddie asked softly but Ryn never got a chance to answer as they had arrived and Ben was already waiting.

*~*~*

_‘No turning back now,’_ he thought nervously as the two girl came up to him.

“Hello Ben,” Ryn said and Maddie echoed the greeting.

“Hi Ryn,” did his voice squeak? God he hoped not…

“Why did you ask us out here?” Maddie asked.

“I was thinking about…the festival.” Ben said and Maddie immediately understood what he meant.

“You want to ask Ryn about…that story.” Maddie stated rather than asked to which Ben nodded.

“Festival?” Ryn asked testing the new word.

“Every year we have a…celebration,” Maddie attempted to explain; “about your people.”

“Why?” Ryn asked cautiously.

“Honestly it’s about drawing in tourists and making money,” Maddie said quickly as she sensed that Ben really wanted to get to the point; “but it started because of the story that’s been passed down for a long time…” she turned to Ben to give him an opening.

“It’s about a human who fell in love with a female of your people…” Ben began.

“Charles Pownall, yes?” Ryn interrupted him.

“You know it?” asked Maddie.

“We use it to warn each other of why we should not be around humans, Ryn does not understand why you would be having a party about what he had done.” Ryn’s thoughts were swirling as she was trying to take it all in and process it.

“What he had done?” Ben asked confused as Maddie’s face lit up in realization.

“Ryn, on the way here you were saying that something bad had happened between the humans and your people; was Charles Pownall involved?” Maddie asked as Ben looked at her in shock and horror.

“Involved?” Ryn’s voice was colder than they had ever heard; it was a frightening contrast to the neutral tone they were used to. “He was the one who started the slaughter of Ryn’s tribe!”

The two humans were stunned into silence, they stared at the mermaid whose face was usually as neutral as her voice was twisted in anger; neither said anything for a long time as Ryn breathed heavily in anger.

“But that’s not how the story goes,” Ben protested as he somehow managed to gather his wits first; “Charles was said to have loved his mermaid! Our stories say nothing about this!”

“We know they were loves,” Ryn replied; “we also know about their child.”

“There’s no mention of a kid in any of our stories,” Maddie said quietly to Ben; both absorbed in Ryn’s words.

“It is said, that the child was born not right, it looked different,” Ryn continued as if she hadn’t heard Maddie; “he took the child into the trees and killed it, she sunk into grief and was never seen again, it is thought that she took her own life.”

_‘That’s impossible!’_ Ben thought horrified.

“That was when he began to cull my people, he and a group of humans, they would kill babies in front of their mothers…” she trailed off before she took a breath and turned to the two humans that she had hoped that she could trust. “Why do you celebrate our deaths? And why do you ask about Charles Pownall at all?”

“We didn’t know about any killings,” Maddie’s voice was a bit stronger now; “as far as humans know Ryn, you don’t exist, no one does except for a few people, you’re the first one that is proof that mermaids even exist in the first place…and like we said, it’s mostly to get people to visit here…” she turned to Ben to give him his queue.

“As for Charles,” Ben started before he licked his dry lips in nervousness; “I wanted to know if it was even true that he did love a mermaid because…he was my ancestor. My full name is Ben Pownall.” He became quiet now.

“Ancestor?” Ryn asked with the foreign word as disbelief swam inside her; unable to believe that a male like Ben, who had been so kind to her could share blood with the man who all but destroyed her people as a whole.

“A family member who isn’t alive anymore,” Maddie quietly enough that only Ben’s proximity to her and Ryn’s superior hearing allowed them to hear her. Ryn let out a small distressed noise as she began stomping away from them; the humans had to squelch the urge to go after her knowing that it wouldn’t help, they had to let her process this on her own and she might not even want their help, although it was painful for the both of them to see her like this…

To their relief, she didn’t start stripping off her clothes and jump into the water like they had feared; but instead stopped a few feet away from the ocean and plopped down hard in the sand and curled herself forward as her shoulders shook. They had no choice but to wait for her to make the first move.

*~*~*

_‘What is this Ryn is feeling?’_ She thought frantically, she felt her shoulders shake but couldn’t identify a reason for it. She felt sad, angry and she had a peculiar feeling of something wanting to come out of her eyes as her vision began to blur; the only word that came to mind for her emotional state was: betrayal. Yes, she was sure that was what it was called.

How could those two humans share blood? Ben and Charles Pownall…one seemed a good person and the other had nearly destroyed her race; how could she handle this? She knew that she felt something towards Ben, it was a warm feeling that she couldn’t identify and was the same one that she felt with Maddie.

Part of her, the most primal part of her wanted to flee now and never return to land and ignore these feelings; however that same part of her in addition to the human part that had been emerging since she had met Maddie wanted her to stay despite what she now knew, that she shouldn’t compare to the two as they were not the same person.

If he had any intention of hurting her, would he not have done so by now once he discovered her true form? There was also what Maddie said, about humans not even believing that her kind existed; if this was true then perhaps she was truly safe on land? What did she want to do? It felt like a long time to her before she came to her decision.

_‘I want to stay, with Maddie…and Ben;’_ she thought firmly. She felt safe with the both of them, she was sure that neither would hurt her; but could she really forget about what happened to her people? Perhaps she could ask them…yes, maybe they might know what to do…

*~*~*

Neither human was sure what to think when she suddenly stood up from her sitting position and walked back to them; their breaths hitched when they saw the dried tear tracks on her face as she stopped in front of them, they wanted to reach out to her but didn’t know how she was going to react.

“Ryn trusts both of you,” she said quietly; “you would never hurt, but Ryn does not want to forget what happened. Family have long memories, live long lives, have not forgotten tragedy and never will…”

“You don’t have to forget, you shouldn’t,” Maddie told her quietly.

“Humans have committed atrocities against each other and we haven’t forgotten about those,” Ben pointed out once he had gathered up the courage to speak again. “You don’t even have to forgive him for what he did, even though he’s been dead for about a century now; but…I guess all you have to do now is move forward in your own life.”

Ben had no idea where these words even came from, he normally wasn’t this philosophical, but his words seemed to have an effect on her as she almost fell against them; he wasn’t sure if she was trying to hug them but he almost instinctively wrapped his arms around her and he felt Maddie do the same before Ryn reciprocated their loving gestures.

They didn’t know how long they stayed that way, holding each other as they listened to the water lapping the shore and never saying a word; eventually it was Maddie who reluctantly broke the three way embrace.

“Ryn,” she said softly as if not to upset her again; the other two broke apart as they looked at her. “You said that Charles took the baby into the trees?”

“That is what has been told,” Ryn confirmed.

“What are you thinking Maddie?” Ben asked.

“I mean…Ben, who lived in an area back then that Ryn described?” Maddie asked and recognition dawned on Ben.

“That’s right…isn’t that where the Haida people lived?” Ben replied.

“Exactly…” Maddie added.

“Haida?” Ryn inquired.

“A tribe of humans, different from me and Ben;” Maddie tried to explain in terms that Ryn would understand. “My dad is a member…”

“You think your dad might have a story that could tell us more about what happened?” Ben asked.

“If he does, then it might be too…squeamish to tell me,” Maddie admitted; “he usually only tells me the ones that he deems “family friendly” and that I’m not old enough to hear any of the others…so I highly doubt he would tell me anything if I asked. Plus, that would mean telling him…” she glances at Ryn meaningfully with Ben mirroring her movement.

“And we shouldn’t go around telling anyone that mermaids actually exist, even if it’s your dad;” Ben conceded. “That should only happen if there’s some kind of emergency that requires him to be in the know, assuming that he wouldn’t immediately think we were nuts…”

“We could ask the other of my people that is here,” Ryn cut in; causing them to look at her with confusion.

“What do you mean there’s another one of you here? As in the town?” Maddie asked finally.

“The one who had been cleaning outside when Ryn and Maddie had went to buy Ryn’s clothes,” Ryn said bluntly.

“Helen Hawkins,” Maddie said; “she was the only one cleaning outside her shop that day. I saw you two look at each other strangely but I forgot to ask why that was. She had looked pretty shocked now that I think about it…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ben cut in with raised hands; “Ms. Hawkins? Are you saying that Helen Hawkins is a mermaid?”

“If we are speaking about the same female than yes.” Ryn said bluntly.

“But she’s lived in this town her whole life,” Maddie protested; “if I remember correctly than her parents had moved here before she was born. So how can she be a mermaid?”

“Do not know how,” Ryn replied; “but my kind can sense each other even when on land. Ryn is not wrong, this Helen Hawkins is of my people…that I am sure of!” This last part was said forcefully enough that it had the two humans mostly convinced despite some skepticism remaining. “I want to speak with her!” They knew that she wouldn’t budge from this.

“Well it’s already getting late and I don’t think she would appreciate being woken up this early in the morning,” Ben stated as he looked at his watch. “I’m not going to be free until the weekend as the fishing is going to take pretty much all day.”

“Saturday’s only a couple of days away,” Maddie added; “it’s the best chance we got to ask her anything since she’s never that busy anyway save for the occasional tourist and we should go during the day…” their voices faded into the background for Ryn. She could have sworn that her heart was racing at the thought of actually meeting another one of her kind on land and what kind of answers she might have.

“Sound good Ryn?” Maddie’s voice almost startled her and she could only nod and trust they knew best.

“Yes, okay.” She agreed and they lapsed into silence for a moment before they turned and stared at the water, then each other before they all embraced once again before they went their separate ways for the next two days.


	8. Some Facts of Life

It was a groggy and very sore Ben that woke up late Saturday morning, Friday’s catch had been heavier than before and so his muscles were actually sorer than they had been even on day one of this gig. It wasn’t just his arms now either, his legs were burning too from trying to maintain his leverage on the boat and not to fall overboard; last thing he needed was to prove Calvin right in that he couldn’t handle this.

Sure the guy in question never dared say it out loud, but Ben could pretty much sense that he was thinking it every time Ben struggled with the haul despite how much he had kept improving until yesterday. He definitely knew now that he had to get his license one way or another and find a good gym that wouldn’t mind that he was a minor because he knew that gym classes at school were not going to be enough to get him through next years’ work.

_‘Hopefully there will be a next year,’_ he thought as he dragged himself out of bed. That’s why he had to suck it up and not utter one complaint; knowing his dad he would probably take it as a weakness and pull him off the job if only to humiliate him for his failure…no quitting wasn’t an option and if anything he would just have to request to do it again the next year.

He really did enjoy the view from the boat when he wasn’t too busy looking at the water for fish and the catch itself; there was so much beauty out there that he had never really appreciated before…

_‘And it’s not just the surface either,’_ he reminded himself as he showered; there was beauty below the surface, Ryn was proof of that and Maddie was the beauty that he had been missing out on land…oh shit. Great, teenage hormones hit him at that moment…he turned the water to cold.

There was a message on his phone from Maddie when he finally finished:

_We’re ready to go, we’re just heading to the shop now; see ya!_

_‘I guess there’s no backing out now,’_ he groaned inwardly as he got dressed; he didn’t have to worry about any awkwardness with his family this morning as his parents were going to be out on the boat today and Doug was spending the weekend at a friends’ house (amazing enough that he even had any friends) so he really didn’t want to have to come up with a good lie as to where he was going.

The sun seemed extra bright when he stepped outside, he shielded his eyes as he kept them forward until they had adjusted; his heart was racing, he felt nauseous, he wanted to either pass out or turn and walk back to the house and shut himself up in his room for the rest of his life. There was no denying just how nervous he was, he hadn’t spoken to either of the girls save via texts since Ryn’s grand revelation and now he was meeting up with them to see a woman who may or may not have some answers.

_‘And maybe you’re afraid that you won’t like what she tells you;’_ a dark voice taunted him and he knew that his inner voice was right, there was the possibility that the truth was as terrible as Ryn had claimed. He had always thought that his family clinging onto how great a man Charles had been had been a little (okay more than a little) over the top but if what Ryn had said was indeed the truth, than pretty much the entire Pownall legacy was nothing but a complete lie.

_‘There’s only one way to find out…possibly;’_ he thought as he reached the front of the antique shop and they were already waiting for him. Maddie and Ryn both waved in a subdued way and he followed suit as he walked up.

“Are you ready?” Maddie asked gently, sympathetically.

_‘Hell no!’_ “As ready as I’ll ever be, let’s do this.”

They walked in.

*~*~*

Luckily for the trio the shop was empty at the moment, the bell chiming was the only sound that could be heard and Helen emerged from the back like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

“Wel-” she cut herself off as soon as she saw who was in her shop; more accurately it was two of the occupants, one was of her mother’s people, the other descended from the man who had committed mass genocide against those same people.

“Ms. Hawkins,” Maddie began carefully; “we need to talk to you about…”

“Ryn knows who you are,” the mermaid cut her off; “you need to talk about what you know about Charles Pownall.”

_‘Oh shit!’_ “What makes you think you know who I am?” Helen tried to stay calm.

“Ryn can sense you are the same people;” Ryn replied bluntly. “Do not lie, Ryn knows that you sense her as well, Maddie saw us watch each other; now tell us everything!”

_‘She’s young but it seems that her senses are well enough to detect me after all, there’s no denying it since they’re clearly not going to leave until I answer their questions.’_ “I can assume than that you’ve already told them about me?” Helen replied folding her arms.

“Then you’re actually a mermaid?” Ben asked.

“One-eighth actually, not a lot but I was never sure if it was enough to be sensed by a full blooded one, I guess it still is;” she gave a little chuckle.

“So one of Ryn’s people came onto land than?” Asked Maddie.

“Yes, and no, it’s hard to explain;” Helen admitted. “I would have to show you something, but you will have to wait outside while I close up the shop; you can go out through the back, I would rather not have us be seen together.” Her voice was so firm that they all knew that she wasn’t messing around and decided to do as she said and hope that this wasn’t just a trick to lock them out of the shop or something.

But she seemed to have kept her word when she eventually came out the door and locked it before she turned to them.

“What I have to show you is something that I have kept secret for a long time, as did my mother, it will answer your questions and under no circumstances are you to go there alone and you are especially not to tell anyone about this. Understand?” She turned around and began walking without waiting for an answer, clearly she only wanted to get this over with; without much choice, they followed her.

*~*~*

The two humans who could tell time and the mermaid who was just learning couldn’t tell how long they had walked but eventually Helen led them from the town, over some rocks on water to a heavily wooded area, up a hill and eventually they reached…

“Is this a cemetery?” Ben asked as surprise coloured his voice.

“It is,” Helen replied as she stopped by what looked to be the oldest of the graves; the stone was the most weathered looking.

“Cemetery?” Ryn queried.

“Where humans bury their dead,” Maddie explained.

“We bury our dead as well,” Ryn replied. “Only happen once in Ryn’s lifetime, we took body to special place and bury them in the sand, body sunk into resting place of the dead or so it is said.” Admittedly all three were looking at her in fascination before Helen shook herself out of it first.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” she began; “this is my family’s burial plot, far away from the rest of the humans to hide our secret. I assume that you know about the love child of Charles Pownall and his mermaid?”

“The one he killed yes,” Ryn said coldly.

“Is that what your people believe?” Helen’s voice held a little pity which confused them. “This grave here,” she motioned to the one beside her; “is the oldest one here and it belongs to the daughter of Charles Pownall and his mermaid.”

“Why are you showing us a baby’s grave?” Ben asked with horror and Helen gave him an exasperated look.

“Because this grave didn’t belong to a baby,” she replied and her voice told everyone that her patience was thin now; “she lived to be around a hundred years old.” She turns to Ryn, “your people were mistaken…”

“How? She was said to have been killed because she did not come out right…” Ryn trailed off as she waited for the explanation.”

“It is true, she was born caught between worlds, only half-transformed, but he didn’t take her into the woods to kill her;” Helen’s voice was soft. “He knew that no human doctor would treat her, so he took her to the only people who wouldn’t be blinded by prejudice…”

“The Haida,” Maddie said with confidence knowing that her theory seemed to be confirmed.

“Yes,” Helen confirmed with a nod; “they helped finish her transformation. However, Charles had no idea on how to raise a hybrid child so he left her with the tribe; in hindsight, perhaps that had been for the best considering what actions he took next…” she finished with a frown.

“So it is true, he did commit a massacre…” Ben said.

“Yes, his lovers’ abandonment drove him mad when he could no longer hear her song;” Helen said with a frown before she turned her attention to Ryn. “Ryn is it? Have you sung to anyone since you came ashore?”

“She sang to me the other day,” Maddie confessed and Helen and Ben’s heads swiveled to look at her.

“It is true,” Ryn confirmed and Helen frowned a little.

“And why did you sing to her?” Helen asked.

“Maddie wasn’t happy, Ryn wanted to sing to make her happy;” Ryn replied.

“And how are you feeling now Maddie? Are you still feeling the effects?” Helen asked.

“I felt happy for a while, like a few hours before it kind of faded away…” Maddie trailed off as she tried to fight back a blush not wanting to reveal the other feelings that Ryn’s song had invoked in her.

Helen hummed a little before she turned her attention back to Ryn.

“You aren’t fully grown, are you?”

“No,” Ryn shook her head; “only short time left. But Ryn does not understand what this has to do with singing.”

“Charles Pownall went mad from being unable to hear his lovers’ song, even I don’t know why, but it appears that a Siren’s song seems to do something to a humans’ brain; for good or bad…” Helen stopped for a second before continuing. “That’s I must ask that you don’t sing anymore, you may have gotten lucky with Maddie once, but your song might change its effects as you grow older…” this time she trailed off in order to let her point sink into the mermaid.

It took a couple of beats for Ryn to reluctantly nod her head; Ben took the time to formulate his question.

“Ms. Hawkins, how do you know so much about my family’s history? I can understand knowing about mermaids in general and knowing what he did to Ryn’s people, but…how exactly do you know the truth about what happened to the baby if no one seems to?”

“Because,” Helen said softly before placing a hand on the tombstone; “this tomb doesn’t just belong to Charles Pownall’s daughter…it also belongs to my grandmother.” No one said anything for a moment as the two humans let this information sink in.

“You and Ben are related,” Maddie’s voice was so quiet that it was barely audible.

“Does my father know? I mean, the whole truth?” Ben asked desperately wanting to know if his father was party to hiding something this big.

“I doubt it, from what I understand Charles’ widow was pretty desperate to hide his infidelity and if I recall correctly there were rumors that his erratic behaviour before he died was triggered by too much to drink and I suppose they simply left it at that until it was all but forgotten by our town. No, I assume that as far as your father knows Charles was an alcoholic who strayed into the arms of another woman and I’m just the latest and last result of this indiscretion; more than likely that’s why they’ve been paying us off for long…”

“My dad’s giving you hush money?” Ben didn’t know why he was as surprised as he was; his parents were all about the Pownall image, so it must be a relief to them that Charles Pownall was still considered a great man after all this time. He couldn’t help but wonder how much damage control Charles’ widow and legitimate children had to do to keep even the lie from impacting their fortunes…

“I suppose you can call it that, I only take it as a form of subtle revenge and because my shop under normal circumstances doesn’t make enough for me to actually live off of…” she gave a chortle before she moved away from the grave and stared out at the water they had crossed to get here. “Not that I have anyone to pass it all onto when I’m dead, hell, I don’t know anyone who would bury me here since I’m the last of this branch and you’re the only ones who even know that this cemetery even exists…”

Nothing more was said, Helen more or less seemed to have deemed the topic closed as she began to lead the group back the way they had come; only Ben turned back once to look over the small and sad looking plot that held members of his family that he hadn’t even known about before he rejoined them at the rear.

This time, he memorized the way a little better, because on the chance that he outlived his far removed cousin than he just may be the one who would have to bury her…

*~*~*

It was after they had gone their separate ways, Helen back to her shop while the three young individuals were essentially left to their own devices that Ryn asked an uncomfortable question.

“Why did you act as if a male having two females was a bad thing?” She asked as they walked away from the shop and both humans halted. “Your voices told me your feelings.” She bluntly added.

“Well,” Maddie managed to stutter out; “some tribes of humans have a ceremony were two people say that they aren’t going to have any other besides each other and it is more or less frowned upon to break this promise.” No need to bring up the whole sexuality/marriage bias just yet…

“My people do not do that,” Ryn said shaking her head.

“Then what do you do?” Ben asked as they began walking again.

“More females in colony, have to share males;” she replied bluntly. “Some females even mate with each other so long as they do not share close blood ties if they want to.”

Both humans blushed at the mental images that they received, Ryn noticed but didn’t think of asking, putting it down to humans being strange.

“And not one of your people believe that it’s wrong to have two females mate?” Maddie asked quietly.

“No, sometimes two females and a male will mate at once,” _‘in spite of the danger;’_ Ryn replied calmly. The two humans weren’t quite sure what to make of her admission and tried to squash down the images they brought up, Ryn would have allowed them to flow freely had she known what Ben looked like under his clothes; so she simply settled on thinking of Maddie, her expressionless face hiding her feelings well.

The trio simply walked around together in silence, albeit for different reasons.


	9. When You're Happy, Bad Things Happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we'll have a time jump, a certain accident and Ben has a revelation...

The next month went by fast for the two humans and their mermaid friend, it had become a routine for them to hang out frequently when neither human weren’t with their own friends and Ryn would be using these times to swim in the ocean to keep her skin affliction at bay; by the time it was mid-August, everyone had settled into a comfortable routine.

Ryn’s linguistic skills had improved to the point that she barely referred to herself in the third person anymore and could almost construct full sentences, although her writing still looked a bit childish and needed improvement the most. Dale and Maddie had talked it over (only telling Susan afterwards) and it was decided that Ryn would be enrolling in school when September came but they wouldn’t tell her just yet; Dale had wanted to wait until whether the proper paperwork for Ryn would come through first.

They still hadn’t taken Ryn outside very often, she still seemed unsure about being around unfamiliar people and neither Bishop nor Ben pushed the subject; neither Ben nor Maddie would ever dare admit it out loud, but they were quite content to at least have the mermaid all to themselves for the summer.

Of course, people certainly noticed Ryn now as a newcomer and their fellow teens also noticed the new friendship between Ben and Maddie as well, their other friends had naturally grilled them on this new dynamic and they were truthful as they could, that they had started hanging out because of Ryn; but that certainly didn’t stop people from talking and wondering just who this girl was.

While Maddie and Ben were nervous about the chatter, Ryn simply tuned it out, not caring about the strange talking, even if it was about her; content to put it down to more strange behaviour by humans.

“Doesn’t it bother you? The talk about you I mean,” Ben asked her one day while the three of them were sitting in a shaded spot that was well enough away from the other beach goers; using the chance to introduce Ryn to ice cream as they ate it from cones.

“No, it doesn’t mean anything,” Ryn replied somewhat miffed that she was interrupted when she was enjoying her strawberry cone. “Easy to ignore because I don’t care about what other humans think of me, Ben and Maddie are all I care about.” She went back to eating, mindful of the fact that she had to be slow; but that was difficult as she really wanted to devour the treat. During her time on the surface she had been given a variety of foods to eat besides ones from her waters and she had found that she enjoyed sweet things, mainly fruit and now ice cream.

The two humans weren’t sure what to think of her cool attitude, on the one hand that was a good thing because it eased their worries somewhat but on the other it made them wonder if she was only putting up a front to keep them from worrying; despite the fact that she never gave any indication that she understood such a concept…

“Ryn,” Maddie asked after she had taken a bite of her vanilla; “just how long were you planning to stay on land anyway?” She wasn’t sure what made her pluck up the courage to ask the question for which she might dread the answer (she somewhat suspected that Ben felt the same way). Ryn stopped eating thoughtfully before answering.

“I am not sure,” she replied; “I did not have a plan when I came from the water, I didn’t expect to be found so quickly…” she appeared to be simply going back to her cone, but she kept her gaze on Maddie out of the corner of her eye and had no intention of sharing her observing of Maddie with anyone.

“Why exactly did you come here than?” Ben asked looking up from his Neapolitan. Naturally he kept silent about the fact that in her peoples’ point of view she had thrown herself into danger by coming onto land.

“I was curious, I would watch everyone have fun along the beach and wondered what it would be like to be among them despite the danger I might have put myself in,” she replied simply hoping that the questions were done so she could finish her cone; however, she realized that she had a question of her own.

“Why do you ask about my stay?”

“Well,” Maddie began, “my dad and I have been talking and if you’re going to stay here past the summer,” she didn’t have to explain what that was to Ryn, they had already talked about the four seasons and the months that composed them; “he thought that you should be enrolled in school with us.” Neither girl noticed Ben nearly choke on the bite of his cone that he just took.

“What is school?” Ryn asked curiously as her mind was churning and making connections.

“It’s where kids go to learn things and make friends,” Ben explained after he recovered.

“Is that what those papers I saw your father going over for? The ones he had on the kitchen table?” Ryn asked after she had mentally made the connection between the word and possible spelling from what she had seen on the papers.

“Exactly,” Maddie said with a grin while repressing the urge to clap her hands like she was praising a child.

“What kind of things do you learn down there?” Ben asked before he finished his cone.

“We start learning to hunt only a short while after we are born,” she said after a pause to gather her thoughts, ignoring the surprised looks on the faces of her human companions; “we spend a short time with mother before we go with males, they are the ones who teach us hunting. Once we have made our first kill, we are no longer considered infants, male infants stay with older males to learn how to fight and females are returned to our mothers to learn how to sing…”

“Why are you separated like that? And why can’t you learn to sing from your fathers?” Maddie asked.

“We need to know how to hunt as soon as possible, hunting is our most valuable skill for survival;” she replied. “And males can’t sing, only we can so we must learn from mothers or a close female relative if mother is dead.”

“So you learned your song from your mom?” Maddie asked; feeling somewhat envious of the thought of daughters having such closeness with their mom’s…

“There is more than one song that we can sing,” Ryn replied; “some we learn from our mothers, such as songs that make us feel happy like the one I sang to you, there is one healing song, there are many that I cannot explain completely. But there is a rare song that…” she stopped. When the two humans just looked at her and she shrugged, “well, it is something that is not discussed aloud, it is a private song. But…perhaps someday I will speak to you about it.” Inside she was relieved that she had managed to stop herself before she had revealed too much.

The mating song was a personal one, unique to any mermaid that sang it and would only be heard by those who they had a particularly close bond with, it was considered taboo to talk about it with others unless it was with those they were mated; Ryn wanted to speak about it with her two humans but did not think it was time yet. Since they had spent time together after returning from Helen’s family burial grounds, she had felt something welling up inside of her, an urge to sing that she had never felt before and there was only one explanation for that. The problem was the song did not come up right away, it was one that was sung in private and developed over time but she had yet to find time for enough privacy to sing away the urge that had been building up over time…

“What happens after you learn your songs?” Ben asked after observing Ryn zone out and Maddie was preoccupied with finishing her ice cream. Whatever Ryn had been thinking about must have been deep because both humans noticed her startled body language when Ben had spoken.

“We decide what we want to be,” she replied after a few seconds; “males can only hunt, fight and mate, females have more jobs, we can be hunters, warriors, healers. The strongest warrior leads our pack and leadership is decided by a fight to the death between the current leader and their challenger, but only a warrior with enough confidence in their strength and skills would even dare to challenge a leader.” Ben and Maddie tried not to wince at this information, they couldn’t judge the Mer people based on humans guidelines after all.

“What did you want to do?” Maddie asked.

“I wanted to be hunter,” Ryn replied; “had no desire to be a warrior and had no patience for healing. Healers are the ones who know all of the healing songs for various ailments and it takes a long time to know them all; I am content with only knowing one healing song, but I know one healer from my generation who had been praised for her quickness in learning compared to generations past.”

“But if everyone knows how to hunt for food,” Ben started; “why do you need hunters at all?”

“Hunters are to bring back food the ones that are too old to hunt anymore, we never abandon family no matter how old they are;” Ryn replied. “But hunters do not simply go and gather food, sometimes the training of hunters and warriors are… what is a similar word for switching?”

“Interchangeable?” Ben offered.

“Yes, interchangeable because we also hunt for intruders in territory with the warriors, who also do the fighting, but only fully grown hunters go looking so I have only gathered food in my life;” Ryn replied and the humans already could figure out what happened to intruders. She could sense their unease and decided to calm them.

“We don’t kill all intruders,” she started and they leaned in to listen better; “my people would never kill a small one, we know that they are precious, young are often taken in by the pack they unknowingly wandered into. My packs’ current leader was a young one that had been taken in long time ago.”

“Aren’t any of your people upset that an outsider leads them?” Maddie asked.

“She is not outsider anymore,” Ryn replied simply; “she is one of us and no one has dared to challenge her since she took over.” Her tone held enough finality in it that Ben and Maddie got the message and just turned their attention to the people around them while Ryn discreetly devoured her cone in case they would ask more questions again; when she was finished, she copied their people watching.

Time went by slowly for the three of them as they observed everyone, families, friends, strangers alike congregated in the sand; to the two humans in the trio it was just watching an ordinary day in the summer, for Ryn it was strange watching them from a different point of view than before. Eventually, Maddie decided to bring up a point that had been nagging at her since her dad had started the enrollment process for Ryn.

“Ryn,” she said softly as she turned to her and the mermaid reciprocated the action. “If you do end up staying long enough to go to school, I think it might be best if you still pretended not to speak English, you can show that you understand, but I think you should keep your words short like you still do with my parents.” Despite Ryn’s advancement in linguistics, she still kept her words short but that was more out of shyness than anything.

“Why?”

“Because they may ask uncomfortable questions like the ones that we have been asking you; and might react…not as well as we have, so I was thinking that the less you speak the less chance they might bother you.” Maddie said carefully with Ben nodding in agreement.

“It would be intimidating to be pestered by a lot of questions…” Ryn said thoughtfully; “but what do I say when they ask where I’m from? I don’t know other human lands besides this one…”

“We’ll work on that in the meantime,” Maddie said with a smile that Ben copied but his fell after a few seconds when he turned his head to see Doug running towards them and his face was filled with panic…

“I’ll be right back guys,” he told them before he got up to meet his brother.

*~*~*

“Doug what’s going on?!” Ben asked when he was a few steps from his brother.

“It’s mom! She and dad were on the boat earlier…”

_‘Yeah Doug I know!’_ Ben thought impatiently.

“And something happened and she’s hurt badly! Ben, she’s in a coma!” Doug said out of breath; no doubt he had ran all the way out here to find Ben.

Ben went white, his legs were jelly that were just barely holding him up; he may have been easily irritated by his parents but he never would have wished anything like this on them.

_‘Mom…’_ “Alright, just give me a sec!” Ben managed to get out before he turned to go back to the girls.

“Okay, I’ve got a taxi waiting so hurry!” Doug called out as Ben got out of earshot.

*~*~*

“Something is wrong, Ben does not look happy,” Ryn commented as the boy in question ran back to them; her understanding of facial expressions having improved in the time she had spent on land.

“I’m sorry guys, I gotta go!” Ben got out when he stopped in front of them as they were getting up from the sand.

“What’s wrong?” Maddie asked.

“It’s my mom, she’s in the hospital, there was an accident on the boat and it’s bad!” He replied frantically.

“I’m so sorry Ben! You just go to her!” Maddie said; “we’ll just go home now.” Ben sped off as soon as Maddie had finished speaking; the two girls brushed themselves off before they began walking off back to the Bishop residence.

“Is Ben’s mother going to die?” Ryn asked quietly.

“I don’t know, I guess it’s possible, but it’s too soon to tell;” Maddie’s voice was equally quiet. “Hopefully she won’t, for his sake…”

“My mother died when I was quite young,” Ryn said; “my older sister had been the one to take care of me after, it had been sudden, she had become ill without warning and none of our healers had been able to do anything for her. It still hurts after so much time, I do not want Ben to go through that kind of pain…”

Maddie said nothing, she simply wrapped an arm around the mermaid and pulled her close; hoping that Ben would contact them soon.

He only sent one message the rest of the day and it was to tell them that she was in a coma and that had led to an explanation for Ryn as to what that meant; which only made them both sadder.

*~*~*

Maddie sent him a text to call her the next day but he didn’t reply, she tried multiple times but he still wouldn’t answer. That one day turned into two then three, then days went by without contact and then they turned into weeks until they had only a few days left of summer before they all had to go to school; the paperwork had come through for Ryn and Ben hadn’t been around to help celebrate. Maddie heard through the grapevine that Ben had been staying by his mom’s side the entire time and had only occasionally left to eat at home and shower, he hadn’t been talking to any one of his friends either…

“If he will not speak or come to us, then we must go to him,” Ryn had firmly said one day after Maddie had expressed her frustration. “He needs us, he needs to know that.”

Maddie had stopped pacing and looked at the mermaid that was sitting on her bed, cross-legged and frowning. Maddie wanted to agree with her, but part of her wanted to give him more time to pull himself together, and yet…that technique didn’t exactly work when it came to her mom getting her act together, so maybe…

“I guess you’re right,” Maddie sighed as Ryn got up and went to her side; “if he’s not going to take care of himself, then we’ll just have to go and remind him to.”

“Yes, we should take care of him.”

*~*~*

Ben was a mess and he knew it; he had a new record in how many days he had spent without bathing and he hadn’t eaten since the night before; meanwhile his mom still hadn’t woken up despite the doctor’s assurances that she was out of the woods in regards to her injury, however there was something else about it that was bothering Ben and that was the fact that his mom would never be able to walk or even feel anything below her waist.

That news had devastated the three Pownall males almost as much as Elaine’s comatose state had and they all dealt with it in their own ways, Ben decided to sulk by his mothers’ side, his father worked harder and visited when he could, Doug tagged along wherever their dad was; Ted’s visits were so late that Ben often pretended to be asleep so as not to cause concern (not hard since he had trouble falling asleep now) and Ben heard every word his father uttered to his sleeping mom.

It was always how this was all his fault, that he shouldn’t have dragged her onto the boat…on and on his trails of words went in circles; there was no doubt in Ben’s mind that his dad was plagued by guilt.

_‘I guess really does hurt,’_ he thought as he held his head in his hands as he repressed the urge to check his phone knowing that it was going to be flooded with messages from his friends, especially from Maddie and Ryn by extension; if he was a little more honest he was hoping that the two would visit him to offer him some comfort…

“Ben!” a female voice shouted by his ear and he jumped a little as he was startled before he whipped his head around to see Maddie straightening herself with Ryn standing behind her. “You look like shit!” she added.

“And you smell very bad,” Ryn added bluntly; “you would frighten away a shark.”

_‘I keep forgetting about her excellent sense of smell,’_ he thought miserably. “You guys didn’t have to come all the way down here…”

“Yes we did,” Maddie said firmly; “you haven’t talked to a single friend of yours in weeks, I know it’s your mom and you’re in a lot of pain right now, but you have to stop this crap, you’re worrying everyone.” _‘Especially me and Ryn…’_

“What if she wakes up and I’m not here? I don’t want to leave her alone!” Ben said as he jumped out of his chair, startling the two girls.

“Do you think your mother would be happy to see you miserable?” Ryn asked pointedly as she strode over and grabbed Ben by his arm, she knew that she had to be careful regarding her considerable strength by she still used enough to keep a fairly good grip. “We take you back to your home, you need to eat and sleep; do not argue!” she said jabbing a finger in his face when he opened his mouth.

“…Fine,” he agreed reluctantly as Maddie took his other arm and led him out the door.

*~*~*

Ryn hid her amazement well, Ben’s dwelling was bigger than Maddie’s and any others that she had seen whenever she walked around town and she wondered exactly what it meant among humans to have ones dwelling a different size; she already knew that humans usually lived separate from each other unless they were close family or friends according to Ben and Maddie and made a note to ask when things were okay again.

“Now sit your ass down,” Maddie ordered after he had directed them to the dining room. “I’m making you actual food and Ryn will keep an eye on you, right Ryn?”

“Yes,” Ryn replied as she carefully slipped her hand into the pocket where she knew he stored his cellphone before she removed it to turn it off; she knew how to do it from seeing Ben do it all the time when they spent time together to avoid getting interrupting texts and calls even if she didn’t know how to use one, before she put it back.

“I know you’re hurt,” Ryn said to him quietly as her hearing picked up the sound of Maddie rifling through the cupboards; “I was too when my mother died, but I was still surrounded by family, you should remember that Ben, you have me and Maddie…” she stopped as she allowed her words to sink into his fogged up mind. She didn’t protest when he reached out and held her hand while he squeezed it tightly; he did the same with one of Maddie’s when she had sat down to eat with them for a moment before everyone let go to eat.

*~*~*

It was an awkward trip to Ben’s room, the girls somewhat supporting him and him having to verbalize where it was located; he reached out and grabbed their hands again as they were depositing him on the bed.

“Stay with me,” he said weakly and they gave no protest, they wordlessly crawled with him until there was a girl on each side cuddled up to him; everyone closed their eyes as Ben tightened his grip on them, as he finally fell asleep for the first time in weeks, he thought about how devastated his dad was over his mom being hurt like that and he made a vow:

That nothing was going to happen to either of his girls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I think of Ben's protective personality in canon, I often wondered if it may have had something to do with how his dad might have reacted when his mom was hurt; I think it's obvious that Ted loves Elaine deeply and he might have been an emotional wreck when she was in the hospital and he seems to even be barely holding it together in the show whenever he was near her IMO.


	10. Something New, Something a Bit Familiar

When Ben woke up several hours later, Maddie and Ryn were still tucked into his sides, he smiled a little before he looked around and noticed his phone on the nightstand; he carefully (and reluctantly) separated himself from them before he went to check it, somewhat puzzled that it was turned off but shrugged it off.

There were a few messages but there was only one that he had wanted to see: his mom had woken up and his smile grew wide for the first time in weeks.

*~*~*

“You nervous?” Maddie asked Ryn as the two of them stood outside of the high school on the first day back to school as they waited for Ben to show up as planned.

“A little,” she admitted as she carefully looked over the building that was being filled with the other humans that were the same age as this form that weren’t her favourite companions; she could feel the stares of the other immature humans that lingered outside and she had to trample down the urge to flee.

It appeared that looking over newcomers was common among both races, she could only vaguely recall the way she and the rest of her family had stared at the current Alpha when she had first been retrieved by the one patrol group and brought to them…

“Ready to go in?” Ben’s voice suddenly startled the mermaid from her thoughts and she nearly jumped but kept her composure nonetheless.

“Let’s go,” she finally said; she was glad that she didn’t have to go meet with the “principal” today having done so and gone on the tour the Friday before.

“Just grab our hands if the crowd overwhelms you,” Maddie said before the trio went inside. Ryn knew that the settlement that she had chosen to live in was considered smaller than others as Maddie and Ben had showed her using the television, again it wasn’t much different than the different sized packs that were said to declare their territories by hers; however she still felt overwhelmed by the amount of young ones around her just as much as she was still somewhat intimidated by the amount of adults in the town.

She glanced at Ben out of the corner of her eye and she saw that Maddie’s head was turned completely towards him, no doubt she had noticed the same thing that she had, that he had been “checking up” on them as the saying went more often than he had before and that worried them; Maddie had even wondered just how much his mom’s accident had affected him. Right now he was gripping Maddie’s wrist and allowed his other hand to hover near hers so she could reach for him…

Ryn honestly didn’t know how to feel about his behaviour, it was nothing that her people had ever done, while they did mourn for their dead and pray for the recovery of those who were close to death, close blood family never behaved towards the others in such a manner as he was; she was genuinely curious and had wanted to try and figure out his reasons for herself but she had come up empty and her only option now was to ask him herself but hadn’t found the time yet since she’d had to prepare herself for this day.

She decided that she would simply need to concentrate on her new routine now that she was in school, according to Maddie and Ben it would take up five out of the seven days of the week and the last two might be spent on doing “homework” with little time for fun; she would somehow find the time later, right now she needed to keep up with the crowd and go about her day.

*~*~*

Ben was nearly on edge by the time it was close to lunch, a part of him knew that he was acting like a crazy guy with his recent (and somewhat obsessive) thoughts about Maddie and Ryn; he knew that they had noticed his behaviour towards them and it was only a matter of time before they confronted him, but he genuinely had no idea what to say to them when they did because he had no idea where his thoughts had come from.

He wasn’t entirely sure if he could even blame it on the stress caused by his mom’s accident, because he just enjoyed being around them even before it all happened; it had just felt right, but he knew that he had to slow it down a little, but he was having a tough time even beginning to try, which is why at least part of him was thankful that he didn’t have all of his classes with the girls.

_‘You’ve become a hot mess Pownall,’_ he reminded himself as he tried to take in his history lecture. _‘Since when did your life become a soap opera?’_ It was a rhetorical question and he knew it. He really needed to pull his head out of his ass, the last thing he needed was to fail any of his classes or to chase off his favourite girls; the level of importance not necessarily in that order. It was a relief when the lunch bell finally rang.

*~*~*

_‘This food is decidedly inferior to Maddie’s cooking,’_ Ryn decided as she picked at the cafeteria food looking for the parts that she might consider edible; truthfully the ones that she had already eaten actually tasted like shark, she would have pointed this out to Maddie and Ben, who were sitting on each side of her, but some of their other friends were sitting with the trio and saying that would lead to some uncomfortable questions. She would just have to wait until they were all alone…

They had already gone through what Maddie had called the “basic” questions which consisted of them asking where she was from, what was her family like, how did she get here and how did she like it here. She had taken Maddie’s advice and only gave answers that were one or two words long and that seemed to stop the questions mostly; there was an occasional one that she quickly forgot about as soon as she answered it.

As she felt Ben and Maddie’s legs touching hers, she could admit that she was grateful for their presence as it would have proved impossible for her to remain as calm as she was trying to be, nor would she have been able to experience all that she had so far; she wasn’t sure what would have happened had she not have been found by Maddie or if she hadn’t even spotted her.

This concept of “school” was an interesting one, it did have similarities to the lessons that the young of her people learned from their elders; the difference was that the learning never truly mixed (save for the hunter and warrior training as she had previously told her companions) unlike here where all subjects were learned by everyone.

The subjects themselves were admittedly harder than what her people could learn and she almost snorted at how Ben and Maddie might react to that train of thought; but it was true, she felt like she was able to understand her English classes thanks to her quick grasp of the language but it was some of the other subjects that gave her pause.

Math, History, Geography…while she had been caught up during the summer thanks to Maddie’s old notes, because the textbooks had to be returned at the end of the year, they were still a mystery to her no matter how far back her learning went; she wondered if it was foreign to her because she had difficulty in thinking like a human rather than a mermaid…that had been something that had fascinated her, where did that name for her people come from?

Maddie and Ben had actually taken her to the local library to look that up on their computers and it had been interesting to learn what “mer” had translated from and what the word “maid” had meant in an older dialect of English that wasn’t used anymore; from there she also realized how they connected with the words “merman” and “Mer People”. She hadn’t known until that research that her race had been seen so far back in humanity’s history, even if those stories were dismissed as anything but fiction.

So admittedly she had been interested in human history from that aspect, but she still had trouble keeping up with the processes of the more darker parts of human history; math itself was strange, full of symbols that she had more trouble keeping up with than she had with her letters, the numbers she was getting comfortable with although it was just the smaller ones she had an easier time with.

The concept of Geography was something she could understand, the mapping out of human lands wasn’t that much different than memorizing the territorial boundaries of one’s pack; the key difference being that humans crossing boundaries does not immediately get them killed.

And she still had a few more to go after lunch, Biology, Chemistry, Geometry and Gym. She was curious about the first one as Maddie had previously explained that they were lessons about how humans had studied the natural world around them and she wanted to know what made land so different from the sea and what humans thought about the waters. Chemistry and Geometry she was neutral about; Gym she was excited to do something physical instead of subjects that hurt her brain but Maddie had to remind her beforehand that she had to be careful with her strength as she was far stronger than humans and would definitely injure someone if she wasn’t careful, like how she had damaged that car…

Many weeks before she had begun to truly adapt to being around humans, she, Maddie and Ben had been out late when they had mistakenly wandered too close to a car that had a pretty sensitive alarm and her instincts had kicked in where she had punched it at full strength; in hindsight, the looks on Ben and Maddie’s faces were quite amusing but it had led to a long explanation of why she couldn’t do that and that they had been lucky that no one was around as they ran from the crime scene.

And as Maddie had pointed out that morning before they had left after she had been reminded of that incident, humans were far more delicate than metal and if she did something while playing sports at full strength she could injure, possibly even kill someone and that was far more serious than if she was to reveal her secret this way…

Giving up, she simply began to eat what she could with the time left, the nervousness that had abated somewhat was creeping back up again.

*~*~*

It was during Gym near the end of the day that Ben ultimately decided that the universe hated him; it was the only explanation for both Maddie and Ryn looking as good as they did in their gym clothes. Their curves weren’t hidden well at all and Ben had a hard time tearing his eyes away from them so it was a relief when the teacher blew the whistle for their attention; it was a further relief when the boys and girls had been split up. Everyone was going to play basketball, each set got half the court and it was a free for all on how many baskets each individual got; his only concern was just how much Ryn would remember to hold herself back from damaging anything.

Of course, that was in addition to him having to keep his eyes away from the girls running and jumping bodies and concentrate on his own score…

*~*~*

In Maddie’s opinion, Ryn wasn’t doing a half bad job at pretending to be another human, she hadn’t crushed the ball, knocked another human across the room or even broke the basket when she made her attempts; she actually wasn’t too bad at the game either, she had initially stayed back while she had observed the others play until she seemed to understand the rules. She made a few baskets, but Maddie strongly suspected that she was simply holding back so as not to draw attention to herself.

Maddie didn’t dare let her eyes linger on Ryn for too long at a time, she knew if she did than she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the game, instead she would be too busy looking at Ryn’s…assets and distraction always led to accidents; like that time she was seven and had tripped over a crack on the sidewalk and nearly fell into traffic when she had been distracted by the sight of a dog chasing a squirrel…

_‘This is pure torture,’_ she sighed inwardly as she managed to snatch the ball from another girl.

*~*~*

_‘This is an interesting game, nothing that could be done underwater;’_ Ryn mused as she allowed the ball to be snatched out of her hands. She knew that wasn’t the point of the game, but she could tell from observing that the other girls didn’t usually hold onto the ball for as long as she was capable of doing and for the sake of blending in she would allow them to take it after a while.

Basketball was certainly an interesting game to play, throwing a ball to have it sail through the air to land through a target basket like this was certainly something that her people would never thought of; mainly because the force of the water would have made it impossible to throw an object through it, although perhaps her people had enough strength to be able to pull this off…

One key advantage she had despite her human appearance was her superior senses that allowed her to hear when she had an opening to grab the ball, but she also was able to use it to look like she was concentrating on the game when truthfully she was mostly looking at Maddie and occasionally she managed to slide her gaze across the court to look at Ben in what she hoped was a discrete manner.

They were both fine physical specimens, for humans anyway, they would have needed more physical training along with the other attributes to be considered desirable by her people; so she was still a little confused as to why they were on her mind when she wasn’t thinking about her lessons. She wasn’t naïve, she knew that she was attracted to them, but they were still two different races and the last time had ended in such a senseless tragedy…

But she truly couldn’t help herself, when she was around them she felt safe like when she was with her sister, yet this felt like a different kind of safe; one she couldn’t quite identify, however she had her suspicions and didn’t want to think about them just yet…

She continued playing as if nothing was swirling about in her mind…

*~*~*

Ryn had been so nervous coming into the school that she hadn’t paid any attention to the announcement board that was situated next to the front office, but as she left with Ben and Maddie at the end of the day, one of the posters that had to have been put up either that day or the day before in preparation caught her eye and she tried to read it silently. The poster showed people swimming in water, which is what had grabbed her attention to begin with.

_‘Swim Team Tryouts…’_ she read inwardly as she felt her companions stop walking and come up behind her.

“Figures you would be interested,” she heard Maddie tease and she didn’t turn around to face them until she felt that she had sufficiently suppressed her blush.

“Yes, I would like to be able swim in this form,” she said quietly not wanting anyone to overhear; “and perhaps swimming in a team would help me adapt better to this life.” _‘And maybe make me feel less homesick…’_

“But will it even be safe to swim?” Ben asked, concern coloured his tone. “How do we know that you won’t…you know?” He carefully placed his hands at their backs and began leading them out the door, the hall was really beginning to fill up and the danger of being overheard was steadily increasing.

“I don’t think that will happen,” Ryn said somewhat confidently; “it’s not the same water as the ocean, is it?”

“No,” Maddie conceded; “it’s usually filled with a hose like the public pools that you saw around town, but it also has Chlorine and other cleaning chemicals and since you haven’t been in those we don’t know if the chemicals will make you sick or something. And there’s also the fact that…”

“I never got to learn how to swim in this form and the tryouts are next week…” Ryn finished.

“Don’t worry, we’ll teach you!” Ben said soothingly.

“But we’ll only have the weekend to practice, if that…” Ryn replied morosely. “What if I can’t learn enough in time?”

“Ryn, you’ve already learned so much in the short time you’ve been here,” Maddie reminded her. “I’m sure if you put your mind into it like you’re doing with everything else, you’ll be able to do it in time; I think it’s about letting your body connect to the water even if it’s a different kind of water than you’re used to.”

“I guess,” Ryn said as she cheered up a little; “except I want to do it when there’s no people around, but that isn’t possible…”

“Unless…” Ben began and the girls turned towards him, he looked around and saw that they were far enough away that no one was likely to hear what he would say next. “Unless we snuck into the school pool at night…”

“Ben Pownall, are you suggesting that we actually break some rules?” Maddie’s voice was teasing and his face grew hot as his brain fumbled for a reply and it didn’t help that both girls were looking at him strangely.

“Well, I mean if having to try to learn in front of people is too much for Ryn than I guess that it’s for the best that we do it at night when there’s no one here and the school’s pool won’t have a heavy cover to fumble with; I can only assume that it’s because it’s an indoor pool…” he trailed off not wanting to ramble on in embarrassment.

“And how would you know that?” Maddie asked with a raised brow.

“I kind of overheard Matt McCormick talking about it when he threw his in school pool party last year,” Ben replied sheepishly.

“You mean the one that got heard by a teacher that was unexpectedly working late that got him both kicked off the boys’ swim team and almost expelled for?” Maddie asked.

“Yeah, that one…” Ben was still sheepish as they both turned to Ryn; this was her final decision. She tilted her head in thought for a moment before she answered, weighing her desire to be close to the water (and some people) again with the possible consequences that her humans just named.

“I guess we have to be quiet than if we are not to get in trouble,” she said with a small smile; not realizing the kind of images she was invoking in their minds.

“We still have to get you a swim suit though,” Maddie remembered as she checked her watch; “if we hurry we can go get you one so we can be ready tonight, we don’t have that much homework to do anyway, what about you Ben?”

“I don’t either, I’ll be done by the time it’s late,” he replied. “How about I text you to come when I’ve checked the place out, no need to get all of us in trouble…”

“So sweet,” Maddie said with a laugh before she and Ryn waved their goodbyes and Ben could only weakly do the same as he walked home in a daze as he realized that he might now being seeing the girls just one step above being naked.

_‘What did I just get myself into?’_


	11. Re-Learning Something is Always Hard

Ben’s fingers fumbled as he typed out his message to Maddie’s phone, confirming that he had been around the school already and that there wasn’t anyone there that he could find; his nerves were starting to get the best of him as was his excitement, he had never broken the rules before, at least not to this extent and his heart was racing from that and from the thought of being near his girls when they were close to being naked…

_‘Tramp down those thoughts Pownall!’_ He scolded as he tried to settle his burgeoning erection down, it was worse because he had already changed into his swim trunks and was just sitting on the bench by the entrance that led outside; it was how he got in and would make for the quickest getaway if something unexpected happened.

It was almost nine p.m. at this point, he had come around eight to give him some time to do his patrol, it was the earliest hour that he dared because it wasn’t entirely dark yet at this time but he couldn’t have come later because they still had to get some sleep in between the swimming lessons and school, so time was short in how much they could get through each night; hopefully they would be able to get more done on Friday since they all had an opportunity to sleep in on the weekend.

_‘But this will all be worth it,’_ he hoped as he put his phone beside him; he wanted to keep it handy in case they had to cancel on him or something. He happened to catch his reflection in the pool and he leaned forward again to get a good look at himself, he didn’t really pay attention to his appearance when he had done his morning chores because he had been in a hurry; but his vanity was calling out to him now that he had the time to look at himself properly.

All that fish hauling that he had done all summer had helped him muscle up a little bit, he wasn’t the skinny guy that he had been at the end of the last school year but he wasn’t as fit looking as he had hoped to be and knew that he would have to somehow take advantage of the weight training room the school had for the football players; at least until he had his license so that he could go out and buy a set of his own…once he cleared a space in his room.

_‘I really have a lot to do this year,’_ he sighed to himself; and all of this was in addition to keeping his grades up to keep his folks happy. He shook himself from his thoughts and sat back again and almost dozed off when he heard the back entrance door open and he nearly jumped out of his skin until he saw that it was just the girls.

“You falling asleep there?” Maddie teased as she entered first, holding a bag with Ryn following behind her; Ben recognized it as a local sportswear shop.

“No,” he replied indignantly. “I didn’t see anyone here, but we still gotta sleep for school tomorrow so let’s get this going!”

“Just gotta change first,” Maddie said, her smile hadn’t left her face for a second and seemed amused; Ryn’s body language told him the same despite her not having mastered facial expressions as of yet. He watched them as they went into the girls’ changing room, the urge to go have a peek had never been so strong before; instead he just jumped into the pool, he already broken some school rules by doing this, he didn’t need to break any moral ones.

For the next couple of minutes, he swam a couple of laps around his area to alleviate his boredom and to give him something to do so he wouldn’t end up thinking inappropriate thoughts about his companions.

“Is that how you do it?” He turned to the sound of Ryn’s voice and nearly swallowed water in his shock; he hadn’t know what to expect when they came out, but both girls wearing two pieces was nothing short of a dream and a waking nightmare. It was so hard to keep his gaze on their faces…

“That’s just one way of doing it,” Maddie’s voice cut through his dirty thoughts and for that he was immensely grateful. “There’s different ways to swim, there’s even competitions that would call for more than one, and I think you would have to know all of them to get on the team. I know that we were taught all of them during lessons from elementary school gym…”

“We were,” Ben confirmed; “the key here will be remembering all of them, we’ll just have to look online on our own for the ones that we don’t remember…”

“Except that won’t matter if I end up changing,” Ryn replied bluntly; “show me how to get into the pool.”

“Well you can either dive in like you do in the ocean,” Maddie said; “or you could use one of those ladders.” She pointed to the objects in question. “You should probably start with the ladder since we’re in the shallow end to start with and it’s kind of dangerous to dive in the shallow end…”

“Okay,” Ryn replied before she walked over to the nearest one and carefully maneuvered her feet and gripped the handle bars so that she slipped into the pool without a problem; despite her confidence, the two humans discretely held their breath the whole time and only released when nothing happened as she submerged herself.

“What next?” she asked as they swam over to her.

“I guess maybe we should stick to the “breast stroke” this time,” Maddie stated as Ben tried not to choke on his saliva as he tried to avoid looking at those exact assets on either girl. “Here, we’ll show you.”

*~*~*

Ryn was reluctant to leave three hours later when the two humans had decided that they had tempted fate enough for that night; she acquiesced their logic and caution but she had been having so much fun learning this one swimming technique that she could have stayed the whole night!

It was quite a change, having to learn how to swim with two legs compared to a single tail, she honestly didn’t know how humans could do it, or at least that had been her feelings at first when her two companions had to show her how to kick her legs properly; but she tried because if humans could swim then she could do it too. She still found it a little disconcerting but she had managed to get herself used to it, maybe she could even admit that she was starting to enjoy it…

She did admittedly feel good at having made her humans laugh when she made a fool of herself when her caution made her “dog paddle” for a little while until her confidence had grown enough to do the breast stroke properly; when they had asked her at the end if she had wanted to continue with her lessons, she hadn’t hesitated in saying yes. But it was more than just wanting the freedom of swimming again even in a different form (although this reason was a big part of it), or just having something to do that was school related, she also wanted to be able to swim with her humans on their terms.

When she had watched them swim during the summer break in the public pools, she had felt lonely and had desperately wished to join them but hadn’t wanted to ask for lessons because she had no desire to show other humans that she couldn’t swim; so she had simply stayed on the side, sitting far from splashing distance and watched them sadly as they had their fun without her.

But now, things could be different, she could swim with people again; even if it wasn’t with her own…

“So I guess as long as nothing unexpected happens, we’ll be back tomorrow?” Ben asked when they were far enough away not to be seen. “I mean, you’re still sure Ryn? You haven’t changed your mind?”

“Yes,” Ryn said; “I still want to know more, I want to swim again.”

*~*~*

That first week had gone smoothly for the trio, they had little homework and had managed to sneak into the pool at night with no problem; although it was difficult for Ryn to repress the urge to stick her head into the water as she swam, she had to remember that humans didn’t need water like she had been used to and her humans had no desire for her to test to see if that carried over to this form.

By that Friday night she was already practicing her speed, which was admittedly slow going since no matter how much effort she put in, her limbs still had some difficulty in cooperating, but she was steadily getting faster; in addition she practiced changing her form (pun certainly not intended) at each end just like they did at the Olympics.

“It’s when humans all over the world gather in a previously picked place and compete in a set of sports,” Maddie had explained when Ryn had asked; resetting the stop watch that they had bought when they thought it was time for speed training, on this particular night Ryn was competing against Ben (she had went up against Maddie the night before), the land bound mermaid was steadily improving as she had only been beaten by Ben by about five seconds.

Not that this quite said a lot, Ben wasn’t exactly an athlete who was part of a team, but his new sinewy muscles made him a bit of a better swimmer than he had been before, not that would bring it up cause that would be in poor taste…

“It only happens every four years,” Ben took over as he rested himself against his arms that he held against the sides of the pool, slightly out of breath but Ryn was breathing slightly faster than him; her body not quite used to the exertion yet. “So a lot of people are excited when they happen, if they’re not seeing it live then they’re glued to the TV to watch the live coverage.”

“There’s actually two kinds of Olympics,” Maddie said wanting to let Ben get air better; “One for the summer and one for the winter, the last winter one was a couple of years back but the summer one was just this year, but it’s already ended.”

“There’s always when it comes on DVD anyway,” Ben reminded her; sounding less out of breath now. “That way Ryn could always go back over anything she doesn’t understand.”

“Actually I would like to see the past swimming competitions,” Ryn said as she too leaned against the pool side, trying to catch her breath with somewhat more difficulty than Ben was; no doubt it was because she had not entirely gotten used to the physical limits of this body. “They would be posted online, right?” The everyday norm of the internet was still such a marvel to her.

“If you guys aren’t doing anything tomorrow, you can come over and watch on my laptop,” Ben offered.

“Your parents won’t mind?” Maddie asked.

“They’ll be at mom’s physical therapy and Doug will be at a friend’s house; we’ll be all alone…” Ben could have smacked himself at how flirtatious he had sounded and was relieved (and maybe a little bit disappointed) that they hadn’t seemed to have noticed. Having them around would be a little less lonely though…

“We don’t have anything to do, do we Maddie?” Ryn asked as she inched her way towards the ladder; she didn’t think she would survive another lap and was ready to go.

“No I don’t think so,” Maddie replied and she noticed Ryn’s actions; “ready to call it a night Ryn?”

“Yes, I do not think that I can handle anymore tonight, I just want to go to sleep;” Ryn said as she climbed out, not noticing just how intently both humans were looking at her, as they had done every night.

“Alright, we’ll just call each other tomorrow then,” Ben said as he hoisted himself out from the pool where he had been resting; thanking Maddie for the towel that she handed him. They went their separate ways after that.

*~*~*

Ben was a nervous wreck the next day, he almost regretted his invitation as it finally sunk in that he had asked his two female friends (he didn’t dare call them by any other label, even in his thoughts) to be in his house, all alone without any parental supervision whatsoever…as a guy it would be a dream come true, except for the fact that he didn’t even know how the girls felt, if they even felt the same way he did…

_‘Whatever that is,’_ he thought as he straightened up his room as he waited for a text from Maddie to confirm their visit or not; he was also mapping out mentally just where he could set up his exercise equipment. Part of him wondered if he was cleaning up to make a good impression and not just because his parents were pretty clear that they wanted to see a clean room when they got back…

The beep from his phone startled him even though he was expecting it, he was slightly relieved to see that it was in fact Maddie to confirm that she and Ryn were on their way and that it wasn’t his parents telling him that they were coming home early; because his dad had told him that he was taking Elaine out shopping to cheer her up and Ben knew that could take hours and that it was Sylvia’s day off, Doug would be studying with his friends and wouldn’t be back for some time…

Ben raced down to the front door to greet them when they arrived, anticipation caused to look out the front window without looking away once.

*~*~*

_‘And this is what the Pownall money can buy,’_ Maddie thought as she and Ryn came up the front walk; sure she had Ryn had seen the house in passing before when they had been hanging out with Ben, but this was the first time that either of them had seen it up close and had actually been paying attention to the house and not to Ben’s downward spiral.

“It’s bigger up close,” Ryn said her thoughts were along similar lines as they reached the door and both were a bit startled when Ben opened the door before they could knock.

“Hey, come on in!” He said breathlessly as he let them inside; “just leave your shoes here and I’ll take you up,” he was pointing to a small mat by the door. “I just got to turning my computer on when you came, my parents wanted to see a clean room when they got back so most of my time was eaten up by that.”

“I bet,” Maddie replied as she and Ryn removed their shoes while clutching a notebook in her arm; “my parents wouldn’t let us leave the house until we had promised to be back before dinner and to show them the times that Ryn gets from practicing.”

“So you didn’t tell them the truth?” Ben asked curiously as he started up the stairs.

“We told a partial truth,” Maddie corrected as the girls began to follow him. “Ryn wants to go into one of the pools later to practice some more after she’s had her fill of videos, so as far as they know that’s what we’re going to be doing all afternoon.”

_‘That explains the notebook!’_ “But how are you going to help fill up the times? You won’t get that much time for swimming when we’re done and won’t they be suspicious if there is so little times put in?”

“I remember my times from the past week,” Ryn informed him as they reached their destination; “we’ll just use what we think is believable.”

“If you’ll just give me a few minutes,” Ben requested as he sat down and began to search.

*~*~*

Ryn had a good time at Ben’s house, she enjoyed watching the videos of the female “Olympians” swimming so quickly like they were gliding through the water; it honestly made her miss the water a bit more because in her other form she could easily outswim any of these women. It was mesmerizing to see them be able to quickly push themselves off the pool walls to change positions; to have such quick times that she had yet to even hope to match…she really needed to practice!

She was a little disappointed that Ben had decided to stay behind so his parents wouldn’t be upset if they came back before he did, as much as she loved to spend any time she could with Maddie, her best times were with the both of them and was a little confused and irritated that both of them (and her to an extent) were limited by all of these rules that were set out by their elders.

Any young of her kind knew all of the basic rules in a short time, do not stray out the territory, do not eat too much and leave nothing for the rest of your pack…humans had even stranger rules!

But she put this all of out her mind as she practiced swimming laps around the pool while doing her best to avoid bumping into what few people were there; Maddie guessed that because it was going to be autumn soon more people wanted to take a swim at the beach rather than a pool, according to her most of the people that had gone to the pool usually did so because the beaches were at over capacity.

Ryn was grateful for the lack of people nonetheless, it helped with her concentration, although talk of the beach made her wish that she could practice there without transforming…no distractions!

Her times improved a bit that day and it was a hopeful Ryn that walked home with Maddie at the end of the afternoon.


	12. Finding Things To Do

Ryn was both nervous and excited as she stood in line as she waited to be called onto the platform for swim team tryouts; she knew that Bristol Cove was a small settlement so there wouldn’t have been many contenders for her to face against, especially since there were other sports teams that the school offered that most others would gravitate towards in addition to non-athletic clubs, but she still felt that there were a lot of girls that she was up against.

She had arrived early with Maddie and Ben, because that was when the boys’ team tryouts were and she had wanted to watch their techniques in comparison to the females that she had watched on the computer; for some strange reason she hoped that the two humans didn’t believe that she had wanted to watch them out of personal curiosity…

_‘That’s ridiculous,’_ she chided herself as she tried not to look at them as she feared that it might make her more nervous; _‘you spend the most time with them, surely they know that you enjoy their company very much?’_ To take her mind off of her unsteady emotions, she continued to observe the other girls that were in the midst of swimming and she was now trying not to feel intimidated by their grace.

She felt awkward as well because the next week after she had begun her lessons, other girls had been coming to the public pools with friends who had stop watches which made her realize that they were practicing for tryouts too; that made her uncomfortable as she felt that she was being watched and perhaps judged, if not just because she was new here, it would be that she wasn’t as good as she thought she was.

She and her humans had spent this second week breaking into the school pool room to practice as they had before to practice, although they had missed on the Thursday night because the football team was practicing and they would have been spotted so she missed a day that might be crucial to her success this day. A part of her was somewhat regretting signing up for this, she had overheard Ben and Maddie whispering as she was getting off the bleachers to get in line that several of the girls trying out had been on the team since freshman year (and she had already learned what that meant before the first day); and that intimidated her a bit since that meant they were more or less accepted already.

_‘They are so quick!’_ She thought with wonderment as the current group finished their laps, she counted the people in front of her and realized that she was going to be in the next group; _‘would I be able to compete with that?’_ She tried to tramp down her trepidation by running through what she was instructed to do for the tryouts, first they were supposed to swim two laps across their assigned lane while they were timed, then they were to change their positions to whatever was called out by the coach; so Ryn knew that she had to keep her ears open and swim as fast, hard and long as she was able to.

_‘It’s about endurance as well as speed,’_ she thought as she saw that the current set of girls were on their final lap and she tried to steel her nerves and remind herself of what Maddie had whispered to her before she had rose from the bleacher: _“Don’t think of it as winning or losing it out, just do your best and even if you don’t make, there’s always next year…”_

_‘If there is a next year,’_ she reminded herself morosely as she looked at the arm where her dry patch would grow; it wasn’t visible now but it had been by the previous Saturday so she had to spend the entire afternoon discretely swimming in her natural form at the beach, her humans had led her to what they hoped was a deserted area (considering no one ever went to that place anymore) where she just stripped down and jumped in.

That time though, instead of swimming into the ocean as her previous times, she just stayed near them, not hungry enough to venture out and was feeling to lonely to swim away from them at all; she did feel free though, no troubled thoughts about how she was feeling towards her humans, no stress over the swim team, it was just her and the ocean…

But Maddie’s words were both wise and correct, she wasn’t here to win at anything, she wanted only two things out of this: she wanted to learn how to swim and to be able to swim with others again, she knows that she has the ability to do the former and just trying out will able her to do the latter. And yet…

Being on the team itself, with their practices (and according to Ben and Maddie, sports teams practiced a lot, especially if a competition was near and the thought of that was an entirely different beast), she couldn’t help but compare it all to swimming in a group again, something that she hadn’t done in months; not since that first time she came to shore. Also, perhaps it would help her blend in more among the humans, as plenty of other students seem to be in some sort of group or another…

“Ryn Fisher!” The sound of her name almost made her jump as she realized that it was time, taking a small enough breath that no one noticed, and she walked forward to take up the nearest available lane; inwardly shaking her head at how she had nearly let her weakness be shown.

It was still strange, hearing the name that she had both chosen and been given to her, that this was something of hers that came from being in her human form and not from the water; actually the concept of a name was still something to get used to, her people only referred to each other by how they were related to each other and by what caste they belonged to.

She stood tall, wanting to convey an air of confidence, a stance that her Alpha had always did when she spoke an order to her pack, or at least a version that didn’t require the use of a pair of legs; out of the corner of her eyes as she shifted them from side to side, she could see that people stared at her, even some of the other tryout competitors, she knew that it was because the new girl was doing something other than being quiet.

They didn’t matter though, but it did remind her that on the chance that she did make the team and would have to interact with the other girls, she would still have to be careful about how she talked; Ben and Maddie did remind her that she would have to slowly allow her near perfect English to come out to them, as she would with the rest of the humans that she interacted with at school and possibly around town.

Honestly, she was feeling a little more comfortable wearing the one piece swim suit that she had been given to try out in that had the school’s logo on it than the two piece that Maddie had bought for her to practice in, she had thought she had felt her humans’ eyes stare at her in a way that made her feel warm; but it a way that she didn’t feel ready to acknowledge just yet…

She did feel silly wearing the swim cap and goggles though.

Keeping her ears open, she knelt in preparation when she heard the signal, waiting as she tried to keep her breaths even as she kept her eyes forward, trying not to think about the two humans who meant so much to her cheering their hearts out for her…

“Go!”

She pushed off the platform as far as she was able to go and swam just as she practiced, only thinking about the speed and the pumping of her arms and legs through unfamiliar water, ignoring the burning that her arms and legs felt after a while; she wasn’t going to acknowledge the aching of her inexperienced limbs until this was all over and done with, she was just going to do her best to swim along these humans who seemed to enjoy the water almost as much as she did.

She couldn’t quite tell, but she thought that she was slowing down by the time she had finished her initial laps and heard the coach shout out “Butterfly”, instinctively she pushed off and swam in that very position, energy somewhat renewed knowing that she was going to be finished soon; now her ears picked up the sound of Maddie and Ben’s voice, calling her name amongst the crowd and she pushed through that last little bit…

Her mind was a blur as she hauled herself out of the pool and took a towel that was offered to her; she didn’t bother looking for any information on how she did, she knew from the instructions given that the scores and names of those accepted for the team wouldn’t be posted until the end of the school week, so she wouldn’t have this on her mind now that she had done it and knew that she had done her best. It was out of her hands now, what wasn’t out of her hands was spending the rest of the week studying to two tests on Friday…

As soon as she was dried off and changed, her humans mobbed her with hugs, and she felt that maybe, just maybe, she was in fact worthy of their attention…

*~*~*

When Friday came, she put off looking at the list that had been posted at lunch until the end of the school day; for the second time that week (third or fourth if how she felt before her tests counted) she felt a strange sensation in her stomach, like something wanted to come out of her mouth…

“You’re probably just nervous,” Maddie had replied when she quietly inquired about the sensation; “feeling like you’re going to puke is a natural feeling when you’re nervous. You’ll probably learn more about puking in science class,” she added at Ryn’s confused look. “If not, you could always just look it up later.”

“It’s now or never,” Ben reminded her as they were about to pass the notice board; almost robotically, she made her way over to that piece of paper.

She carefully read through the list of names before she smiled and felt both her humans embrace her from behind; it looked like she would be busy after school on Tuesdays…

*~*~*

Ryn was nervous after school that first Tuesday as she said goodbye to Maddie and Ben before she had to go for practice; she was quite disappointed to know that onlookers weren’t allowed during swim practice, but she would be thinking of them “in spirit” as Ben had put it. She was still happy to have this familiar yet unfamiliar opportunity, and she was still in good spirits as she had received the news of her passing test results during her classes; it was still somewhat strange to feel so good about things that hadn’t mattered to her before.

When she got to the door, she took a deep breath before she pulled the handle open, feeling somewhat awkward that she was using the door that didn’t break the rules being there after school hours…

*~*~*

_‘Feels a little weird,’_ Maddie thought as she and Ben waved goodbye to Ryn; _‘being alone with Ben again while Ryn goes to do her own thing, her trips back to the ocean notwithstanding.’_ Especially since Ben had to still completely stop hovering over the two girls, at least he had lightened up on it though.

“Want me to walk you home?” Ben suddenly asked when Ryn was out of sight; despite his odd behaviour lately Maddie felt a little warm at his gentlemanly request.

_‘I just can’t no to him.’_ “Sure,” she tried to sound casual as the two turned around and walked in silence, both awkward and not; however once they got to that notice board, a poster that they definitely hadn’t seen before popped up in her vision.

“Hey, look at this,” she said as she walked over with Ben following. It was an advertisement for the school’s first ever oceanography club.

“Wow, that’s pretty heavy stuff,” Ben commented; “they’ll even have some guest lecturers occasionally, university grade too…I wonder why they’re coming up with this now?”

“Maybe because we’re a seaside town, we do have a pretty good view of the ocean…and a lot of things that live there…” Maddie replied thoughtfully; knowing that she didn’t need to bring up that they both knew one being that lived in the ocean.

“You gonna want to check it out?” He asked.

“You know I think I might…” Maddie answered as she looked at the meeting information; “and they’re also on Tuesdays too, starting on the next one, that’ll at least give me something to do while Ryn is at practice…what about you Ben?”

*~*~*

“Actually…” Ben began nervously; “I was thinking of joining the rock climbing club.” He pointed a poster that was near the top. “It also starts next Tuesday and my parents have been kind of riding me to join some kind of club starting this year.” It wasn’t a complete lie, his parents were “concerned” with his lack of extracurricular activities; but truthfully he knew that he needed something to focus on besides his desire to spend time with Maddie and Ryn…

Also rock climbing might help build some muscle…

“So I guess I’ll be on my own then…” Maddie mused and if Ben didn’t know any better, he thought that she sounded a little sad.

“I’m sure it’ll be fun,” Ben said as he put an arm around her without thinking; “you’ll get to learn about the…other cool things that live in the water. I’m sure that you’ll have loads to tell us after just the first day…I mean I’m sure that even Ryn could learn something too; she doesn’t know everything about the water, she said so herself, remember?”

“True, it even says right here that they’ll be talking about the waters and their inhabitants from all over the world and Ryn has said that she had never moved from the Bristol Cove area before…” Maddie said with a bit more enthusiasm now. “We’ll just have to bring it up with her tomorrow, now, let’s go home, I got a ton of homework to do.”

“Hang on,” Ben said with realization; “how is Ryn going to get back to your place?”

“My dad volunteered to bring her back after her practices, and I guess he’ll have to do the same for me now…”

*~*~*

“Excellent job ladies!” The coach told the collected girls at the end of the practice as they got out from the pool; a chorus of “thank you’s” followed as the girls headed to the changing rooms. Once they got inside, the team captain, whose name was Jennifer Penner (but everyone called her Jen Pen, Ryn was puzzled by that but shrugged it off as the girl in question didn’t even seem to mind), signaled that she had wanted to say something.

The concept of a captain was both familiar and comfortable to Ryn, from what she gathered about how Ben and Maddie had explained it, the team captain (or a president for the non-athletic clubs) was much like an Alpha for that particular group and so that actually brought her a little bit of comfort knowing that despite that there were different rules (captains and presidents couldn’t strike dissenting members for example); she felt just a little bit more at home here.

However, there was one girl that Ryn had noticed didn’t seem too keen on Jen being in the captain position, she was called Jillian Fry and she was a sly one; didn’t hesitate to give suggestions to the coach when she gave an order and pointed out what she felt were mistakes in Jen’s strategies. This irritated her quite a bit and wished that Jen could put her in her place physically.

But Jen seemed to handle it in her own way, she always talked to Jillian in soft spoken way, almost as if to make her think that she was taking her opinion into consideration; however, Ryn got the sense that Jen was actually being…condescending, was that the word? But she did it without sounding like it, her voice matched her presumably insincere words…it seemed that humans used their bodies as weapons without striking out physically like her people would; something else that she could shrug off as being strange…

“You’re the new girl, Ryn right?” She heard from beside her just as they had entered the changing rooms, she didn’t have to turn to know that the voice belonged to Jillian; she may have not still entirely grasped the full range of human vocal tones, but to her the human girls’ voice sounded…too sweet and that put her a little on edge.

“I am,” she replied carefully; this wasn’t the time to be chatty, she had to keep her knowledge limited still, especially from this girl.

“You’re pretty good, where did you learn to swim like that?” Jillian’s voice showed interest; but Ryn was still suspicious.

“Spent my life in the ocean,” she had deemed it a safe enough answer; but she kept her face looking neutral, although this time it’s by choice rather than because she still had the inability to look any other way.

“You must have been quite a star at your old school!” Jillian gushed and Ryn gritted her teeth to keep from lashing out; especially because she was getting a feeling about where the girl was going with this.

_‘Could she want something from me?’_ “Was not interested in team until I came here,” she replied and she still stared ahead of her; but she sensed that she had an audience to the conversation and knew that however she handled this would impact…something in her environment. Jillian seemed to confirm her motives with her next statement.

“It must be hard being new, not having any friends;” Jillian led on.

“Ben and Maddie are friends,” Ryn’s tone was blunter now; “I stay at Maddie’s house.”

“Ben’s a great guy,” Jillian backpedaled; “with all that money.” That last statement was said too quietly for human ears, but not for Ryn’s and it looked as if her motives were actually two-fold.

“But Maddie…” Jillian continued as if pretending to struggle for the right thing to say; “well, I mean that with the talk about her mom and all…”

“About her mom being sick?” Ryn asked coldly. In truth she didn’t understand Maddie’s mother’s behaviour at all but Maddie seemed to be embarrassed to talk about it so she never asked and just came up with her own conclusion.

“I guess you can say that,” Jillian said reluctantly; “but…”

“I can decide friends on my own,” Ryn said; the statement dripped with enough finality that it shocked the human into an awkward silence. She made it a point to change in a corner far enough away from the pest, but she kept a sharp eye on her surroundings; she didn’t know who else had heard the conversation and might feel the need to do something about it.

As she left the pool entirely, she banished the negative interaction from her mind; when Dale came to pick her up and asked her how it went she only focused on how much fun she had during practice when she said: “Fine.”

She almost had a smile on her face.


	13. Falling For Autumn

Ryn genuinely felt happy that her two humans had other things to do while she was at swim practice, but she was also somewhat disappointed that she couldn’t be there to see what they could do; so she had to settle for hearing their stories.

Ben freely talked about how rock climbing was harder than he thought it would be; not only did it require a bit of strength, but a lot of concentration and he was sure that he didn’t quite endear himself to the coach because of the amount of times that he had fell off the wall that first day.

Maddie would talk about what her oceanography club did (after explaining what the word meant to Ryn), they talked about how the ocean differed around the world and about the animals that lived there; but they also talked about pollution and its impact on the environment as a whole.

No story from them was boring to Ryn and they seemed to be interested in hearing what was going on with her; they only seemed mildly concerned when she had told them of Jillian’s antics.

“That girl’s been trying to cause trouble for as long as I can remember,” Maddie had mused; “just stay out of her way and don’t pay attention to anything she says or does, it’s worked for me for years now.”

“And me,” Ben had added and having the both of them give her such reassurance gave her the confidence that she needed. She didn’t dare voice the fact that having someone that she didn’t get along with also somewhat reminded her of the ocean; she and her packs’ current Alpha didn’t quite get along either and she always made a point to stay out of her way lest she be confused for a rival trying to oust her.

Ryn was promised that Maddie would tell them all about her club meetings, Ben promised that the girls would always be able to go to his rock climbing competitions; just as they would come to see her whenever she would be competing. It became a comfortable routine, one that Ryn embraced wholeheartedly, at least when her rash didn’t call her back to the water; but it was shaken up somewhat when she was first introduced to her first holiday: Halloween.

*~*~*

“What is all of this?” Ryn had asked her humans as they had walked into the school the Wednesday that was a week before Halloween; she saw kids that she thought might have been on the student council were putting these orange and black decorations, she recognized that some were in the shape of cats, but others she didn’t, like the weird orange, round vegetable or the green skinned female on a broomstick.

“It’s for Halloween,” Ben answered; “a holiday,” he added at Ryn’s confused look.

“Like the summer break when we first met?” Ryn asked.

“Yes and no,” Maddie said; “the summer holiday was when we got two months off from school to begin the next year, Halloween is an entirely different thing. Especially since there’s a difference between what kids do and what adults do; the only thing that remains the same is that everyone gets to dress up in costumes and have fun.”

“It’s kind of a shame that you couldn’t have come to shore when you were a kid,” Ben said; “you would have been able to go trick or treating for candy. This really takes me back…”

“You can still get some even when you’re on trick or treat duty,” Maddie said; “I’ve been doing that since I got too old to be trick or treating, you just gotta be careful when sneaking one out of the bowl for yourself…” What she didn’t mention that it was probably easier for her compared to any of the other kids because her mom had always been passed out on the couch in her drug induced stupor to catch her doing what she shouldn’t have been doing.

“What do the adults do then?” Ryn asked. Despite the amount of time that had passed with her coming to land, she still had yet to try any sweet besides ice cream; but she thought that if ice cream was that good, then surely the kinds that they would be giving out to the children would be as delicious, right?

“Hold parties,” Ben replied; “or in us high schoolers case, school dances.”

“Of course, you don’t have to go to those,” Maddie interjected; “there’s always the option to stay home and watch movies if you’re still uncomfortable around crowds…”

“I will think about it…” Ryn said as they passed an advertisement for said dance. “When is this Halloween?”

“A week from today.” Was Ben’s response before everyone separated for their classes.

*~*~*

In the end, Ryn had decided to stay at home with Maddie, not because she didn’t want to brave the crowd of kids or to dress up, but because she knew that Maddie would be alone this year since it appeared that her mother was too sick to hand out candy again and the job fell to Maddie by default since her father had explained that he always had to work on Halloween; mostly because some people liked to take advantage of the holidays spookiness to cause trouble.

Ryn didn’t ask what he meant, she was sure that she and Maddie would hear about his evening the next day; but she was happy to be mostly alone with Maddie nonetheless, especially since watching movies was a new thing for her to try. She’d gotten used to watching the television and online movies; but watching a movie on the TV was new to her.

As soon as everyone had eaten dinner, Ryn had plopped herself firmly on the couch as Maddie searched through the library for what to watch first; after she had made up the bowl of treats and Susan had wisely decided to take her antics upstairs to her own room.

““Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Friday the 13th,”…” Maddie muttered as she looked over the classics; “maybe just start off with this one.” She pulled one from the shelf and went over to hand it to Ryn to read for herself.

““Halloween,”” the mermaid muttered before she turned it over to the back; where she had been told the summary for the movie was. Her eyes skimmed over the small writing, not difficult to read with her eyesight but a nuisance nevertheless; she honestly didn’t entirely care what the movie was about, she just wanted to share a close space with Maddie for as long as she was able to without interruption.

“Play it,” she ultimately told her female as she handed it back to her; Maddie did as she requested, popping the DVD in and waited for the main menu to pop up so she could show Ryn how it worked before she turned around and began to walk away.

“You are not staying to watch?” Ryn asked with confusion.

“I need to make the popcorn,” Maddie with a laugh at the mermaid’s cuteness; “don’t worry, I’ve seen this enough times that I know the play by play. I’ll be back soon!” Ryn only nod as she inwardly sulked at missing out the time with Maddie; but cheered slightly when she had come back so she could enjoy the strange food that Maddie had drenched in butter…and the company.

They weren’t interrupted until Jamie Lee’s final girl lap, when there was a knock on the door; instead they heard Ben’s voice.

“Hey! Can I come in?!”

Maddie jumped from the couch, if Ryn hadn’t been gripping so tightly onto the popcorn bowl (not from fear, the movie only somewhat amused her, she was trying to hog it all) it would have gone flying; when she opened it, Ben came in sporting a large grin and the biggest bag of milk chocolate Hershey bars that Maddie had ever seen and more or less the only bag in Ryn’s case.

“I managed to pick this up yesterday, wanted it to be a surprise;” he informed them as he removed his shoes and handed it to Maddie.

“I would have thought that your folks would have wanted you to stay home for candy duty since you weren’t going to the dance and all.” She commented as she carried it back to the living room; the only reaction from Ryn to Ben’s gift was a slight widening of her eyes as she saw it up close.

“About that,” Ben said as he walked in, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck; “I sort of gave off the impression that I wanted to go but was staying behind because that’s what they wanted. Well, Doug decided that he was too old to trick or treat now and wanted to start handing out candy so my parents gave me permission to go out while they stayed with Doug.”

“A little psychological trickery Pownall? I’m actually a little impressed…” Maddie replied as she watched Ryn tear open the bag with gusto; neither noticed that Ben failed to hide the blush that inflamed his face.

“I hope you ladies do enjoy this…and maybe save a little for me because I took a pretty big risk smuggling and hiding this giant bag in my room;” he said as he put on his most charming smile and plopped down on Ryn’s other side. “Is this the first “Halloween”? Haven’t seen this in years!”

“Well it’s almost done and we don’t plan on re-watching for your benefit; are we Ryn?” Maddie asked as she picked up bowl the Ryn had discarded on Maddie’s seat in favor of the new treat before she sat back down.

“Not tonight,” Ryn said without thinking before she opened up a bar and placed it on her tongue; both humans were stunned into a couple of seconds long silence at how casual her tone had been before they shook themselves out of it before they each grabbed a bar from the bag as Maddie resumed the movie.

Ryn herself wasn’t quite as shocked as they were, why wouldn’t she want to spend time with them? There was a special connection between the three of them that she hadn’t felt with any of her own tribe; so why wouldn’t she bring it up? She could only inwardly shrug at the shock that she had sensed from them as she snuggled up to them in her place between them and enjoy this new combination of sweet and salty with the popcorn and chocolate.

Ryn was also introduced to the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th series before they called it a night; it was late enough that the dance would have already been over already so Ben needed to get going and Maddie knew that her dad was going to come back and check on them at any time and no matter how good Ben’s reputation was, she also knew that he wouldn’t be too happy to find a boy in the house all alone with them.

“I guess we should call it a night too,” Maddie said as she picked up the still full candy bowl; she was surprised and yet she wasn’t that only a couple of kids had showed up during their movie marathon, she was sure that most of the people in town weren’t sure about Ryn’s character since she seemed so mysterious to them. The amount of kids that had come to the Bishop year after year had dwindled since her mom’s…problems started until they had been lucky if five or six showed up…

“More for us,” Ryn said as she grabbed onto a final treat from the bowl and ate it.

“We’ll just have to put these in a bag…” Maddie trailed off as she noticed that Ryn was already tipping the bowl into the half empty Hersey bag. “That’ll work!” she said with a laugh.

“I’ll keep these with me,” Ryn said holding up the bag.

“Just don’t make yourself sick,” Maddie told her.

“I am saving,” Ryn confirmed as they made their way upstairs.

When they were all tucked in bed later, Ryn smiled as she went to sleep; she liked this Halloween and she was beginning to like the season of autumn as well, the leaves looked so pretty when they changed their colours like they did.

She couldn’t wait to see what came next.

*~*~*

If Halloween was pleasant for her, than Thanksgiving gave her a bit of joy too.

She tried so many new foods and even got to meet some of Maddie’s “extended” family; including an aunt that had just had a baby through something that Ryn barely heard be pronounced (Maddie had promised to explain later). She did like most of the food, but she admittedly wasn’t too keen on the pumpkin pie…

It was still weird though, to have a holiday where such a large family would come together for, after all, she was used to having her entire family around her at all times…Thanksgiving made her feel a little sad and she had cried a little when she had went to sleep that night; the whole experience made her miss her family!

But she couldn’t go back, not just yet; there was still so much to see and she was beginning to enjoy life up here. Her school grades were good (according to Maddie and Ben anyway) and despite some coldness from Jillian and her friends, she was slowly getting to know the girls on the swim team while improving her skills.

She still had so much to do, so much to learn…

*~*~*

The next week was the first time she saw snow.


	14. When Winter Comes, Cuddle Someone

“It’s just snow Ryn, there’s nothing to worry about!” Maddie had told her gently when the mermaid had ran into her room to ask about the strange white things that were falling from the sky. “It just means that winter is almost here, because it’s cold enough for them to form.”

“How? What is it made from?” Ryn asked as she sat on the edge of the bed; it was true, she had noticed a gradual temperature change as summer had turned into autumn, but it didn’t bother her like it did the humans, presumably because the depths of the ocean were far colder than what could count on the surface world.

“It’s just frozen water that falls from the clouds,” Maddie said as she got out of bed; there was no way that Ryn was going to let her get back to sleep now.

“Like rain?” Ryn asked again as she trudged down her disappointment that the cold weather meant that she couldn’t see more of Maddie’s skin; it had been that way since the second week of September, she truly wished to see her flesh again…and Ben’s too!

“Exactly, except for the cold temperature that I just mentioned!” Maddie said as she looked through her closet for something to wear, she was slowly losing her embarrassment about being naked around Ryn, the time spent in the gym class changing room helped with that. “It’s a good thing that we bought you those winter clothes the last time we went shopping!”

“Oh, this is what they were for?” Ryn asked; she hadn’t really questioned why Maddie had insisted on buying those heavy looking clothes and boots for her, just trusted her to know what was best…

“Yep, and it’s a good thing that we brought mine out too because after breakfast I’ll be able to show you how we humans have fun in the snow!” Maddie said cheerfully and Ryn took that as a silent queue to return to her own room to get dressed herself; after taking a peak at Maddie would be wearing…for reference of course.

*~*~*

“Wow, it’s really coming down now!” Maddie commented as the two stood on the front steps. “It’s one thing to see it from the window but to actually see it coming down for yourself…c’mon, there’s enough for me to teach you how to build a snowman, albeit a small one.”

_‘Snowman?’_ Ryn wondered as Maddie grabbed her hand and dragged her to the lawn. Maddie carefully demonstrated how to get the snow to stick together and rolled it into a fair sized ball; then she and Ryn rolled the mid-section together so Maddie could make sure that she got the hung of it before she let Ryn create the head on her own.

“That was…interesting,” Ryn said sincerely after she had carefully placed the head on top. “Is there anything else you do in the snow?”

“We drop down and make snow angels,” Maddie said before she went to do just that; when Ryn had rose from the ground after copying her, she was amazed to feel how wet her hair was, it really was made of water…her train of thought was interrupted when something white pelted into Maddie’s face.

“Hey! Who did that?!” Maddie cried out before they both heard a familiar masculine chuckle.

“I thought you two might be out here!” Ben said as he was already rolling another one.

“What was that?” Ryn asked, curiously she bent down and gathered some snow in an attempt to copy Ben.

“Looks like Ben wants to have a snowball fight!” Maddie chimed, having taken advantage of Ben’s distraction with Ryn to make a quick one that she flung at her attacker; making a direct hit. Ryn had finished hers in the meantime and threw hers at the male human too, being mindful of not putting too much strength into it to injure him.

Ben didn’t like being ganged up on and thought that Ryn needed to be properly initiated so his next shot went at her, Maddie’s next one followed as she had the same idea. None of them would know until they were finished how long they had played but time was meaningless as they also tried to make a game out of stopping once they had cleaned up all the snow in the yard; but that proved impossible as the snowfall had gotten to the point where it was falling too fast for them to keep up.

It had only ended when Sheriff Bishop came outside to go to work, despite his polite protestations Ben ended up sharing the kitchen table with the girls with a mug of hot chocolate at the Sheriff’s invitation; it felt a little awkward to be sharing a small area with them when someone’s parents were home, even if Susan was upstairs “not feeling well” and wasn’t supervising them.

Ben wanted to stay with them longer, but he knew that from one of the talks that he and Maddie had while Ryn had her time in the ocean that Susan could be erratic at times; even if she had been staying in bed because she was hung over or coming down from a high she still had a habit of spontaneously coming down for coffee and was aware that she wouldn’t be too happy to see Ben there…

*~*~*

The three-way hug that occurred before he left the house made him feel pretty damn warm, so the cold air that hit him when he walked out of the door was a somewhat welcome relief; but a reminder that times with them were always way too short is his opinion. Being a teenager really sucked, especially since they’re action were always scrutinized (mainly by his parents); if only he was an adult and he could make his own decisions about wherever and whoever he wanted to do…

_‘As if that’s going to happen,’_ he thought bitterly; that was a pipe dream at best, as long as he stayed here in Bristol Cove his parents would be making decisions for him, it’s one of the reasons that he was already looking at out of state colleges, the problem lay in the fact that he still had no idea what he wanted to study…

But he knew that he had to decide soon, despite that he already had a lot of homework to do already and he also had to figure out how to make room for drivers ed; not to mention that he already needed to figure out what he was going to get the girls for Christmas…since when did life become even more complicated?

Right, when Ryn came along…but he wouldn’t change a thing.

*~*~*

Once Ben had left, Ryn had planted herself back at the kitchen table and just stared out of the nearby window as Maddie put the mugs in the dishwasher; when she was finished and hadn’t seen Ryn move once, she went over and sat across from carefully not wanting to startle her.

“What are you looking at Ryn?” she asked gently.

“The snow itself, it’s odd;” Ryn replied as she finally turned away to look at her female human. “We don’t experience these kinds of changes in the depths of the ocean that I lived in, the leaves changing and falling off of the trees was…jarring; and now I am witnessing a frozen rain falling down, normal rain had also been a foreign concept, water falling from the sky? But water that is cold enough to change forms? My people would have never dreamed that such a thing was possible…

_‘Maybe because it reminds you that you change forms too?’_ Maddie guessed but didn’t dare say it aloud.

“…Everything more or less stays the same down there, except for the pollution and rapidly dwindling food…” Ryn trailed off and again Maddie could guess why; Ryn was still concerned for her race’s survival despite being so far away from them and humanity was responsible for that worry. It was not acceptable…

“I just wish that I could do something to change my people’s suffering,” Ryn’s voice was quiet; Maddie was sure that this last statement wasn’t meant for her ears and that Ryn had accidently thought out loud and so she said nothing.

“But…the ocean depths were still beautiful despite its occasional cruelties;” Ryn said in her normal voice; “and the surface has beautiful things too…” She was staring directly into Maddie’s eyes and Maddie felt a flare of hope that Ryn was not talking about the weather anymore. She decided to take a chance and said:

“It does, but the ocean creates beautiful things too.” Maddie said seriously without looking away from Ryn’s gaze, despite her courage almost failing her for a moment.

For the first time, Ryn let out a smile that was at least visible to the naked eye; even if it was still a small one.

*~*~*

_‘This is completely insane!’_ Ryn thought as she took in the crowd that surrounded her, Maddie and Ben; she clung onto their hands to keep herself from being swept away. It was only two weeks until the holiday that the humans celebrated called Christmas and the people of Bristol Cove were already out clamoring for whatever they could get their hands on.

From what Ben and Maddie had explained, Christmas was another family oriented holiday, with lots of food and a gathering, however the difference between this and Thanksgiving was that this time you bought things for your family members. This last part of the concept wasn’t entirely foreign to her, sometimes her people gave things to each other if they had a tightly knit bond; her own sister had given her a beautiful piece of coral reef to comfort her soon after their mother had died.

But of course money was something that Ryn still needed to get a grip on, although it did relieve her to know from her humans that not all gifts were bought, some humans (mostly children, they admitted) would make gifts; sometimes from various things that they could find lying around.

Since their indirect confessions on that first snow day, Ryn and Maddie still hadn’t truly gone in depth about their feelings, but some subtle things happened between them that they hadn’t entirely done before; longer glances at each other, occasional hand brushes and straying closer to each other when they walked side by side. However, both found a subtle courage in all of this to change their interactions with Ben just a little.

They were careful at first, whenever the three of them were out the both of them would carefully grab onto an arm, not the necessary hand holding that would get them through a large crowd, but the kind where they could loop around him; but they had still kept their distance from his body. However, as they attempted to navigate through the Christmas crowd insanity that was happening, they both took the chance to cuddle up against him; not that Ben was going to complain…

Because he had certainly noticed this bit of change towards him and each other and it felt…nice, actually it was way more than nice; it made his hormones want to run rampant and it was only a will that was as strong as iron that kept him from really grabbing onto either one of them and planting one on them in public. He had spent his puberty up until now avoiding any kind of entanglements with girls, romantic wise or carnal, mainly because he knew that some of them (who may or may not be named Jillian) would (probably) kill to be known as Ben Pownall’s girlfriend.

But the fact that he now spent a great deal of time with two girls (never mind how platonic it was…at least for the moment) certainly garnered a little bit of attention from his peers (he could only thank his lucky stars that his parents had yet to find out) and he heard the rumors being spread around; while he wasn’t sure if the girls in question had heard them and he definitely wasn’t going to ask, so he just pretended not to hear them.

That wasn’t going to stop him from enjoying their company, no let them talk; they could handle anything between the three of them. He was just going to love every second he spent with them, but now that winter was more or less in full force, he sorely wished that he had his own house where the three of them could cuddle up to keep warm…preferable without clothes…

He inwardly sighed, the cold air wasn’t helping one bit…

*~*~*

Despite the hype surrounding it, Ryn thought that New Years was one of the quietest holidays; no presents were expected, no one was running around, there was just the countdown anticipation to look forward to. She marveled at how complicated it was for humans to tell how time passed, despite having known everything for a while now; it was such a long drawn out process to her compared to only watching the whales leave and come back in her pack’s territory…

Just before dinner on the Eve of the New Year, she sat alone in her room, still listening to the mermaid themed music box that Maddie had got for her; apparently she had to get it from Helen by special request. The little mermaid figuring inside the box looked nothing like her or one of her own but she treasured nonetheless and had been listening to it at least once a day since she had opened it.

She smiled as she remembered that Maddie was wearing her present, a seashell necklace that she had made herself; it hadn’t been an easy thing to do since she had needed to ask Ben to use his laptop for an instructional video without letting on what it was for, especially since she had needed it to learn how to make one for him too.

But she had made them different, unique to the both of them; for Maddie’s she had strung along some pearls that she had dived for on one of her return trips to the ocean, some she had sold to a local jeweller while others she had requested for holes to be drilled. Ben’s had a single shell on a strand of black cord, a large spiral that she’d had a hell of a time getting it drilled, it was a contrast to the small delicate ones on Maddie’s; she took pride in the fact that not only did she make her own presents, but she had bought the materials using the profits she received from selling some of those pearls.

Her gaze turned from the twirling mermaid to the necklace that lay on what may as well be considered her dresser, this was Ben’s present to her; it was a black cord like the one she had given him, but rather than a shell, the lone silver charm in the middle depicted two fish swimming side by side but were in a head to tail pose. However, as far as the Bishop’s knew, it had been another gift from Maddie since they still weren’t aware of the girls’ relationship with him, whatever they could call it.

Ryn had already been introduced to the concept of birthdays in October, when she had witnessed a classmate passing around invitations to her friends and talking about the combined birthday and Halloween party that her parents were throwing, already knowing about Halloween by then she only needed to ask about birthdays. After they had explained what that was, Maddie had confessed that when the Sheriff had been filling out the forms, he had asked her about a possible birthdate since that was one of the requirements that needed to be filled out.

Maddie had already prepared for that and had already looked up possible birthdays that might fit and had picked March 3 because that would have fallen into the Pisces astrological sign; that had led to an extensive internet search back at the Bishop’s place as to what that was, Ryn thought the two fish were actually quite pretty together.

Ryn strongly suspected that Maddie had only brought up the Pisces sign at all was because she wanted to give Ben an idea for a Christmas present; this theory came about when Maddie had told her in private that she had gone to Helen’s shop back in mid-October because she hadn’t been sure how long it would take her to find something like the music box. She had been right to as it had only come in just before Christmas break had started.

The reason that she wasn’t wearing it now even though she wanted to was because she hadn’t quite mastered the art of opening and closing a clasp on her own with the patience required and she hadn’t wanted to ruin the gift by fumbling with it or pulling it around with her full strength; in addition, she did enjoy feeling Maddie’s fingers on her neck when she helped her put it on.

The music stopped just as a knock on the door sounded, she recognized Maddie’s distinct knock and hopped off the bed to answer.

“Food’s ready,” Maddie told her.

“Okay,” she said before she went and grabbed the necklace and wordlessly handed it to Maddie, who knew the routine by now, and turned around. She could always swear…no she always knew, that Maddie swept her fingertips over her neck on purpose.

“Done,” Maddie declared when Ryn’s sensitive hearing picked up the sound of the clasp closing quietly.

“Let’s go,” Ryn said softly as she hesitantly looped her arm through Maddie’s and didn’t let go until they had reached the dinner table.

*~*~*

When midnight came, Ryn was transfixed on the fireworks that lit up the night sky on the TV that she barely noticed Maddie’s parents share the traditional midnight kiss out of the corner of her eye; she had barely heard Maddie’s explanation of the tradition beforehand, but as she sat beside Maddie she could understand the desire to do so. However, she couldn’t do it here, how would either of them be able to explain their connection, especially in her people’s terms; no, too many variables to do it right here.

It was still on her mind until the two girls had been about to go to bed, Maddie had just been about to enter her room when Ryn suddenly spun her around and kissed her; she didn’t resist.

*~*~*

Ryn could enjoy the sentiment behind Valentine’s Day, being able to show your affection and may be cuddle up with each other now that it was still cold despite spring being near; but she could only half enjoy the holiday when she only had Ben for company, Maddie and her family had gone out of town because one of her relatives had been in a bad accident and they needed to be there to comfort them. But Maddie had told her in no uncertain terms to enjoy the holiday with Ben…

She could sense that Ben felt the same way, even though no feelings of any kind had been verbalized; neither of them had even gotten anything for each other. As they walked among the school halls that were all decorated with red, pink and white hearts and cheesy cartoon cupids, they weren’t as excited as they should be; it was only once the day had ended and no one was around that Ryn actually did something about it.

She mimicked her actions with Maddie on New Year’s Day and pulled Ben in for a kiss, having to pull him down quite far as he had a bit of a growth spurt over the last couple of seasons. When she finally released him, he could only look at her in shock and with some happiness, he opened his mouth to say something but she beat him to it.

“Maddie told me to do it before she left,” Ryn said anticipating his question; “and she told me to give you one for her.”

Valentine’s Day didn’t turn out so bad after all.


	15. With Spring Comes New Beginnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to end the story here because admittedly I've run out of ideas and trying to continue will only ruin it; but I had a lot of fun writing this and has revitalized my love for the series despite everything that has gone on with it and once again I would like to thank "White_Wolf998" for the inspiration and for everyone who has read and reviewed this story. Despite this story ending I am thinking about continuing this storyline in a sequel that takes place during the show with the obvious changes and maybe a spin off that would take place during their college years that would make reference to events that would have been off screen in this fic; but that won't be for a long time yet...

Ryn had a lot of reflecting to do after Valentine’s Day and as spring drew closer, because so much happened in between; especially between her and her humans.

Once Maddie had come back after Valentine’s Day, they had all gone on a discreet date where Maddie and Ben had shared their first kiss in a darkened theatre; they had also begun to sneak out more at night then they ever had before as they had difficulty in figuring out how to be out during the daytime.

The birthday party for her that came on March 3rd had been a quiet affair, since she didn’t know many people that she could invite anyway, she couldn’t even invite Ben because the Bishop’s still didn’t know about their relationship; her gifts from Ben were only received when she and Maddie had gone out that night like they had planned.

The time around St. Patrick’s Day was…interesting, it wasn’t really celebrated here but she could only guess that the old time fisherman would have any excuse to drink excessively, being underage meant that they were pretty much stuck inside; however, the trio once again snuck out at night to have their own private party, Ben having managed to filch a few bottles of beer for each of them from another bigger party that hadn’t noticed his intrusion.

It was…interesting to the taste, while Ben and Maddie felt a little tipsy by the time they had finished their share, Ryn had still felt fine much to their envy; they brushed it off as that maybe her mermaid physiology tolerated it differently than most humans. It was still a good time had by all and a slight celebration for when spring finally came.

*~*~*

Easter had still been cool, but to Ryn it had been warmer than winter had been; as on Halloween when the three of them went out at night (albeit more secretly) they (re: Ryn) had gorged on the chocolate that Ben had generously supplied them and they both got to envy her once again for keeping her small frame intact.

However, it was also a reminder to Ryn that summer was coming again and that it will have been a year since she had come onto these shores with the only occasional short visit; she hadn’t told her companions yet, but she had slowly noticed a change in her transformations. They were beginning to take a little longer by this point and the pain had steadily increased; she knew that something was changing inside her but she hadn’t figured it out yet.

_‘I’m sure it is nothing to worry about,’_ she had thought as she had gone to bed that night; _‘it will work out on its own.’_ But truthfully she wasn’t entirely confident in that line of thought.

*~*~*

When summer came it also brought Ryn’s decision to stay on land for a while longer and the news that all three of them were going on to be seniors; but it was in the middle of the break that their relationship crossed the final boundary, into the physical territory.

Ben’s parents were going away one weekend to a hospital that specialized in spinal injuries and rehabilitations and they weren’t going to be back until that Monday; Sylvia was given the weekend off, Doug was staying at a friends’ house but they had felt that Ben was old enough to stay behind on his own. It had taken Ben a few moments after they had left for the reality of his being alone to sink in and his stomach had clenched at the realization that he could actually be alone with his girls without sneaking around; without much hesitation he called them as soon as his parents’ vehicle was out of sight.

He hoped that they came up with a good excuse for spending the night without the Bishop’s getting suspicious…but it was still daylight so he should at least give them a good date inside first.

*~*~*

Somehow they ended up falling asleep in the late afternoon, presumably the pizza they scarfed down for dinner had something to do with it; in any case, nobody woke up until it was almost midnight. It had been Ryn who opened her eyes first and looked at the time, she turned to her humans and looked at them, the stirring of sensations that she had felt when Ben had called her and Maddie over had returned; she knew what she wanted from them even if she had never before felt it under the water.

Yes, it was time alright.

She reached over and gently shook Maddie awake, having to reach across Ben’s prone sitting form to do so, Maddie gave a tiny groan before she woke up and looked up at Ryn; she almost opened her mouth in confusion until she saw the look in her girlfriends’ eyes and a certain part below her waist began to tingle. Ryn’s head eventually swiveled down to look at Ben and she copied the gesture.

Almost as if sensing their movements, Ben then began to stir on his own and their faces hovering over him was the first thing he saw. No words were spoken between them, instead Ryn and Maddie removed themselves first, they held onto a hand of his each as they rose from the couch, Ryn’s strength alone would have lifted him too but she was gentle and allowed Maddie to aid in getting him up.

Still silent, they led him up the stairs and into his room before they shut the door; Ben’s only thoughts were that he was glad that he had done some discreet out of town shopping the weekend before.

*~*~*

Ben woke up sore late the next morning, it was almost noon; when he opened his eyes, they fell upon the two girls that had become his whole world who were only covered by a sheet. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever imagined losing his virginity this way…he reluctantly turned away from them and allowed his eyes that were cooled of passion to land on the nearby trash bin.

_‘I never knew just how much stamina I was capable of having,’_ he thought as he took in the fact that the can was all but full; he then became disappointed at the realization that he had in fact used up the entire supply that he had managed to smuggle in under everyone’s nose in that single night and inwardly groaned at the prospect that he would have to make another careful trip and that he would in fact have to buy an even bigger stock.

_‘I need a shower,’_ he bemoaned as he took in his stink; but he wasn’t entirely sure that he was even capable of moving yet. He chose to stay as still as he possibly could, he didn’t even dare be anywhere in touching distance to either of them; he didn’t want to rouse them and he kind of hoped that neither of them wanted to go again, especially Ryn, her stamina seemed to outmatch his and Maddie’s…combined.

Through no fault of his own, Maddie was the next to stir and as soon as her eyes had opened did Ryn moan a little before she followed suit; the latter’s eyes landed on Ben and the look in her eyes was as he had been nervous about and he shook his head as a message. This didn’t seem to deter her as she simply turned her attention to Maddie, who returned the gesture just as deeply.

Ben’s flesh may not have been willing enough to be with either girl, but it was still willing to watch.

*~*~*

When the first anniversary of Ryn’s arrival came, she decided to take a longer trip in the water, but it wasn’t to visit; she was simply going to leave something for her sister, something to let her know that she was alive and thinking about her.

Ben and Maddie took her to their usual dive point, the old abandoned fishing shack that something definitely needed to be done about; neither human shied away when she shed her clothing before she dove in, clutching her gift in her hand.

She still hadn’t told them about how her transformations had changed, she simply grit her teeth as the pain tore through her as she drove herself deeper into the water’s depths; the pain had gotten a bit worse now and she knew that there was a reason for that even if she still had yet to figure out why.

She put it out of her mind as she raced down to deliver her gift without being seen; it was something that she had painstakingly made in secret during shop class from the last semester. She had spent a bit of time getting to know the different woods but had been disappointed to learn that wood didn’t last a long time underwater, she put a lot of varnish on it and hoped that at least it would last a while until she could learn to make things that were more waterproof.

It really wasn’t anything grand, her people didn’t need things like that; but the wooden bangle bracelet was something to remind her sister that she loved her, she emphasized this love by carving her people’s rune for sister right in the middle. She knew that she was taking a risk coming back this far deep, but she wanted to give her sister some peace at least.

Eventually she reached the hiding place where her sister stashed things that were important to her, she could see by the moss that covered it that her sister hadn’t opened it in a while; out of sadness perhaps? In any case, she couldn’t go and deliver a message to anyone to give to her sister that she was to go here…the best she could hope for was that her sister would pass by here and notice the broken moss.

She may as well have pried it open in her haste, but she was careful to place it inside on top of her other things; however, she sensed a presence closing in and shut the hideaway closed before she quickly swam away, back up to the surface and her (permanent?) new home.

Hopefully her sister wouldn’t thrash anyone under the mistaken belief that they had intruded into her sacred space…

*~*~*

As Ryn made her way back to the surface, Maddie and Ben just stood by the shack (although a small cabin might have been a better description) as they gazed out on the water; however, Ben would occasionally look from the water back to the shack and back to the water, the wheels in his mind were turning, but why he wasn’t sure yet. However, the pieces slowly fell into place the longer Ryn was gone, not only did he know what was it about the shack that had picked at him, somehow he also knew what he wanted to do with his life.

“What are you grinning about?” Maddie asked when she noticed his face as he looked at the abandoned building.

“Just thinking about how abandoned that building has been for a long time,” he replied looking at her.

“What about it?” she asked curiously.

“Well, I was thinking…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite a sequel to this not happening for a while, I am toying with doing a different fic that had been on my mind first but had pushed to the side in favor of doing this one; however with NaNoWriMo around the corner I won't get around to that until December at the earliest but I won't guarantee it. I won't tell you what it's about but I will say that it will be a massive AU, as in much darker than this one and possibly even the show; I already have a title for it: "1 Tear Gives 2 Pearls".


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